


Winterhawk Five

by Nny



Series: Winterhawk Kisses [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 150
Words: 60,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: A continuing collection of all the snippets posted on the winterhawkkisses tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

The walls of the palace were impossible to see clearly, woven from tangled tree roots and feathers, wisps of cloud and dreams. The music had stopped playing, but the silence that took its place was built very clearly from the absence of notes, from the songs that were waiting to be. Even not dancing, the creatures around them were dancers, indirect light shining from their teeth and their hair and their eyes and their clothes and their teeth. 

“Take your Bucky,” the king said dismissively, waving a beautiful hand languidly. “You have done well to get so far, and your trials amused me.” 

A man stumbled forward from the throng, dirt-stained and weary and dressed in worn blue. His dark hair was cut just long enough to fall into his eyes, which were the sort of colour that skies dreamed of. 

“Steve?” he croaked - and Clint had never heard a noise like that come out of Steve before. 

“My asset will do in his place, I suppose,” the king said, and Clint was speaking before he could even form a thought. 

“No.” 

For a moment, the glamour flickered. For a moment Clint could see the king’s red skull that lurked beneath the fair skin. 

“What?” 

“No,” Clint said, and he wrapped his fingers around the metal wrist. “You can’t have him.” 

There was a queasy pause, and then the king shouted a laugh. Another laugh echoed just behind it - or was it the same laugh, pouring forth from a profusion of throats? 

“You think you can stop me?” The king asked. “What possible use could you have for my asset? He is built of rust and thorns and nightmares and dust, and he has no life of his own.” 

“I have a name,” the Asset said, his voice the creak of tree branches in darkness, but his eyes the cool grey of iron. “I have a name that he gave me.”

“Tell me,” the king said, leaning forward over steepled fingers. 

“How dumb do you think we are?” Clint asked, like he didn’t know precisely how dumb, like he couldn’t feel from the beauty surrounding him how weak and wanting and worthless he was, like he couldn’t recognise how everyone throughout his whole life had been right - 

Cool metal fingers slid between his, and they had learned just precisely how hard to squeeze. 

“A name is nothing,” the king snapped, losing hold of the fragile thread that held his temper. 

“It’s enough to build a life on,” the Asset said. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Daddy daddy daddy daddy  _daddy!”_

Clint groaned and buried his face in his pillow, thinking longingly, for a moment, of suffocating himself in it. He yawned, jaw-cracking wide, and turned his head to where Es was bouncing from one foot to the other, unnervingly bright-eyed for how dark it was outside. 

“Whazzit?” he asked, shoving up on his elbows, fumbling for his aids. “Spider in the bathroom?” 

“No, daddy,” she said, withering in her scorn, like fear of spiders was  _so_ last week. “You have to come  _see_.” 

Clint gamely pushed himself up a little further, then caught sight of the screen of his phone. 

“Esmerelda Natasha Goddamn Mischief Barton it is  _two forty five in the morning.”_

She rolled her eyes, tiny and emphatic and every inch her mother’s child, and folded her arms across her chest, or at least made a good attempt. 

“I  _had_  to wake you up,” she said, long-suffering. “My snowman came alive!” 

“What,” Clint said, stupid with sleep, or the lack of it. 

“I looked out of my window and my snowman was gone,” she explained, emphatic hand motions underlining her point. “He was there when I went to bed and now he’s gone and  _daddy_ ,” she said, tiny eyes wide, heaving a breath in so she could finish, “now he’s  _alive_.” 

“No more Frozen before bed for you,” he muttered, and then reached out to tug her into his lap, absently noting that the hems of her pyjama pants were a little wet. “Honey,” he said, pressing a kiss to her red hair absently, way he always did when he got her this close. “Sweetheart, the thing with snowmen, they -” 

“He didn’t melt,” she said, wiggling, trying to get back onto the floor. “He came inside.”

“What,” Clint said, instantly awake like he’d been doused in ice water. “What the hell d’you -” 

“He’s in the bathroom,” she told him, matter-of-fact. “He has a boo-boo.” 

Clint didn’t actually remember leaping out of bed, grabbing his bow from behind the door, slinging the strap of his quiver across his bare chest. 

“No,” he said in a whisper, “no, baby, you stay here okay, and daddy will be right back.” He closed the door behind him and crept down the hall to where the cold white of the bathroom light was flooding out into the hall. Taking in a deep breath, he shoved the door open with the ball of his foot, the other planted firmly, an arrow on the string. And then the breath huffed out of him like the moment after a gut punch, and he almost dropped to his knees in the slush and the watery red. 

“…Bucky?”

“Hey,” Bucky croaked, hand towel clamped against his shoulder, “long time no see.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Clint disappears. 

He’s right there, of course, and he hits every shot he makes, of fuckin’ course, but sometimes there’s nothing of Clint left in him. 

It’s not like the footage he’s seen of New York. It’s not like there’s something else there. It’s more like one of the automatons at the penny arcade, one of those kicker and catcher machines; feed it bright copper and watch the archer hit the bullseye every time! 

Bucky watches the shadows behind his eyes blot out everything that’s good there, everything he’s persuaded Clint to believe about himself. He watches and - when they’re in the field, when they’re fighting - his usual approach doesn’t work, here. He can’t curl up and cuddle the Hell out of him, can’t get in close and coax him back into himself. So he resorts to desperate measures, instead, takes the smacks to the back of his head as his due. 

“Really?” Steve says, unimpressed, unimpressive with his helmet-hair. “You had to blow the place up  _again?”_

_“_ Yeah,” Bucky says, watching Clint grinning as he watches leaping flames, like a kid at a bonfire, the light shining into his eyes. “Yeah, I really did.” 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The porch light fizzled out as Clint tried the front door. He glanced up at it, then back over his shoulder - it wasn’t like the decision was hard, even if the door did slam shut with unnatural force behind him. He walked through the house, dust chewing away his footsteps, every light and lamp he passed flickering out with a pop and a shower of sparks. 

A shadow loomed large on the raggedly wallpapered wall. 

A chill blew across the back of his neck. 

A voice -

_I can see what’s under your clothes…_

The lights all flared back on, instant and blinding, and Clint blinked his eyes and tried to square the emptiness from before with the three sudden figures - a little blurry around the edges, sure, but most definitely and determinedly  _present_. 

“Seriously, Tony?” 

This one was the most triangular of the three. He seemed to be built mostly out of the way cotton candy looks before it’s forced onto a stick, but there was a suggestion of a neat parting in his suggestion of hair. 

“We told you,” he continued, “ _creeped out_  ain’t the same as  _given the willies_ , and besides, it was Bucky’s turn.” 

“You tell me you want me to give someone  _the willies_ , Cap, you take the hand you’re dealt. Besides, look at the kid, he looks scared enough.” This second ghost looked like he took pride in his non-corporeal form, tidy around the edges, neatly trimmed. 

The third, who hadn’t said anything but who’d been watching Clint with eyes like flames of ice, drifted forward. 

“He looked like that before he came in here.” 

As he came closer, as Clint started to feel the cold, the third ghost took on a little more shape around the edges. Resolved himself into something that was almost human, that was mostly a man, that was close to beautiful. 

“You okay, kid?” he asked, and he had pale eyes and dark hair and the kind of smile that’d make your knees weak. 

“Sure,” he said. “You’re not so scary.” 

The second ghost bristled at that. “We can do scary,” he said, “we can - give me five minutes and a screwdriver and I’ll scare your damn willies right out of you -” 

“Not compared to the guys who followed me here,” Clint finished, and the first ghost - Cap? - glided forward. The lamp light gilded him, turned him into something golden and glowing and  _righteous_ , ‘cos the good died young, right? 

“There are people after you?” he asked, and Clint nodded. 

“Surprised they haven’t already broken down the front door.” 

“Oh,” the second ghost said, drifting towards the door, the whole essence of him projecting demonic glee, “oh, this is gonna be  _fun_.” 

Cap followed him out, and the third ghost turned to go. Clint reached out and wrapped his hand around the pins-and-needles that almost made up a wrist. 

“Hey beautiful,” he said, “can you really see what’s under my clothes?” 

“Nah,” he said, “Tony’s just -”

“You want to?” Clint asked, and grinned.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

He didn’t really figure he’d get much in the way of business, but that was just fine with him; it wasn’t like he needed the money, and he was so wild about laundry that he’d want to spend every day doing it. He just thought there might be the occasional family looking to break up the monotony of a road trip, maybe a long-haul truck or two aiming to sleep somewhere that wasn’t their cab. 

So he paid Tasha’s friend Steve to pretty up his old sign - and then, turned out, to take it out and burn it and make him one up new. Meanwhile he looked into the relevant permits and shit that’d let him charge strangers for the privilege of eating his mediocre cooking and letting him play with their dogs. 

Then he figured, what the hell, may as well work at getting a little less mediocre. 

(And, what with there potentially being  _people_  around, and what with some of them potentially being  _small_ , he put aside the time to put up a fence around his range.)

Business was slow, which was exactly how he wanted it. Every few weeks he got to meet someone new, test out a couple new recipes, remind himself exactly why he didn’t do more to advertise. He was sitting on his porch swing with a house full of empty bedrooms behind him, feet up on the rail and flicking through gluten-free recipes on Pinterest when his phone rang in his back pocket and almost startled him off the damn swing. 

“Hey there, Clinton.” It was the slow drawl of Mr Parrish. He lived a few miles away, next farm but one, and he was a sour son-of-a-bitch who won the pie contest at the county fair every year. Clint was thinking about giving him a run for his money, this time. 

“Morning, Mr Parrish,” Clint said, ‘cos he still hadn’t been settled here long enough to work his way out of how his teenaged self had addressed the neighbours. 

“You still have your daddy’s old cultivator out in the barn?” he asked, straight to the point as usual. “Mine’s given up the ghost, and if you’re just gonna let your fields go to seed I figured I’d get a fairer price from you than from those vultures at John Deere.” 

“How about you send me over a picture of what a cultivator looks like,” Clint said, just to rile him a little, “and I’ll see if I can dig it out.” 

“Always knew you’d turn out better than your brother did,” Mr Parrish said and hung up without expecting another word out of him, which was probably just as well.

*

Bucky woke up, his limbs stiff and his back aching, same as every morning while spring took its sweet fuckin’ time coming. He did his best to pick the hay out of his hair, then looked at the shafts of sunlight spearing down through chinks in the barn wall. Sun like that was a promise, was a hell of a lot better than any he’d had this side of Christmas, and he decided to take it as a sign. Why not? Things were gonna get better, ‘cos there were limited ways they could work on getting worse. 

He decided to brave it, ‘cos he was starting to offend even himself, and he hooked the old rubber hose back up over the nail he’d beaten into the side of the barn with the sole of his boot, once the lone truck had gone for the day. Some kinda farmer this guy was - he got up late, went off into the woods to do something with repetitive thumping that Bucky still hadn’t figured out, never came near the barn; occasionally he did something in the kitchen that produced the kind of mouth-watering smells that Bucky would consider maiming someone for, as he ate some more of the produce that was just going to rot in the fields. 

He turned on the tap, stripped out of his layers, and braved himself to step under the stream of freezing water, letting out a long line of quiet curses that must’ve hidden the footsteps, ‘cos the first Bucky knew that he had company was turning to see the farmer at the corner of the barn, wide-eyed and foolish lookin’. He was a hell of a lot prettier, up close. 

“You mind?” Bucky said, figuring his only way through this was to brazen it out. After all, what was the guy gonna do? No one liked fighting a guy with his dick out. 

“Shit, sorry,” the farmer said, like  _he_ was the one out of line, and spun on his heel, slapping a hand over his eyes for good measure. Bucky snorted and ducked back under the freezing stream, trying to run his fingers through his hair before giving it up as a bad job. 

“So you’ve been living in my barn?” The farmer asked, but not angry. More kinda conversational, which was something Bucky sure as hell wasn’t used to. He made an affirmative noise and turned the tap back off, briskly rubbing himself down with the cleaner of his two shirts. 

“You found a cultivator in there?” the farmer asked. 


	6. Chapter 6

Clint floats up from dreaming to the gentle tugging of fingers through his hair and he smiles before he’s even conscious of it, wakes up with it already on his face. He’s draped over Bucky, one of his legs hanging off the couch and the other nestled warmly between Bucky’s thighs, his face resting against the warmth of Bucky’s chest and stubble burn on his forehead. 

“Hey, I love you,” he slurs, inelegant because he refuses to moves his head enough to articulate, makes a pathetic protesting noise when Bucky’s fingers still in his hair.

“You still dreaming, sweetheart?” he asks, all soft and low, and Clint turns his head just enough to press a kiss against the soft skin of Bucky’s throat. 

“No,” he says, decisive, sure, and he levers himself up just enough to watch the slow dawn of a smile on Bucky’s tired face. 

“Maybe I am, then,” he says. 


	7. Chapter 7

Clint was tipped back in his desk chair, feet crossed by the pile of unopened mail and hat tipped forward over his face, when the door, for the first time that week, rattled reluctantly open.

He tried to play off his surprise - ‘Cos who was gonna rely on advice from a loser like him? - and straightened up a little, tipping his hat back away from his eyes.

“Help you?”

The guy in the doorway was six foot something of pure trouble, muscled and stubbled and all wrapped up in a cheap suit. The line of his lips whispered promises and his eyes promised violence, and he was every inch a bad decision that Clint wanted like hell to make.

He tipped up the corner of his mouth, bit down and waggled the toothpick there, watching the ghost of an echo of his smile settle on the guy’s beautiful face.

“You here to hire me?” He asked, ‘Cos time was money, and he had too much of one and way too little of the other. “Or you just here to make the place look pretty?”

The guy opened his mouth, but he was cut off by a rattle of gunfire from the street outside, a rain of glass from Clint’s window following him down to the floor.

Great. So it was gonna be that kind of a case.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Clint yawned, slumped down in the cart, somehow managed - despite the restraining bar that was waging a hard-fought battle against Bucky’s thighs - to prop his feet on what served for a dashboard. A skeleton straightened up from behind a wingback chair, fishing out a radio like it was some kind of a threat. 

“Hey, man, you’re really not supposed to -” His voice died away behind them, cut off by a loud crack of thunder as they rattled on into the next room. 

“Oh no,” Clint said, and Bucky didn’t have to look, he could  _hear_  the shit-eating grin. “D’you think they’ll set Captain America on us?” 

“I think I saw him headed to a roller-coaster with Stark,” Bucky said, “so I’m pretty sure Captain America’s gonna be too busy with his head over a trash can.” 

Clint snorted, ignoring the zombies that were shuffling closer to the car, half of them dangling awkwardly from strings and half with the bored shuffle of broke college students who figured this was an easier gig than Wendy’s. Bucky didn’t even bother looking at the ones on his side, though he smacked away the hand of one who got a little too close. 

“This the kind of thing you guys used to do, then?” Clint asked, ducking under a cobweb and somehow ending up a little closer. “Boardwalks and roller-coasters and cotton candy? Golly, it’s all so wholesome!”

“On top of the boardwalks, with Stevie, sure,” Bucky said, his mouth sliding into a smirk. “Underneath -” 

“Holy shit, Bucky Barnes, did you see someone’s brassiere?” Clint gasped, hand coming up to his chest in a ridiculous mime of fake shock. 

“Nah,” Bucky said, and took a deep breath. “Nah, the guys back then didn’t tend to wear ‘em. Why, something you want to tell me?” 

“Huh,” Clint said, as they rattled into a bedroom with blood dripping down the walls. “How about that.” 

An iron bed rose off the floor with the loud hiss of hydraulics, a rocking chair creaked repetitively back and forth, spooky music played from hidden speakers, and Clint rested his head on Bucky’s shoulder, his hair brushing against the skin of Bucky’s neck. 

Bucky swallowed, shifted his weight a little, dared to sling his arm around Clint’s shoulder and pull him in a little closer; for the first time in this whole damned ride, his heart was in his throat. 


	9. Chapter 9

Clint wandered in, his hair still hopelessly rumpled, his feet bare ‘cos he said he still couldn’t reach the secret horde of socks. He blinked at Bucky a couple times, something almost lost in his expression, then hunched his shoulders and turned on his heel.

“What, do I smell or something?”

Clint laughed, and the hollows of it were shoved full of self recrimination.

“That is the exact opposite of the problem that I have.”

Bucky scowled, he could feel himself scowling, 'cos anger had been a hell of a lot safer than uncertainty for seventy goddamned years.

“I don’t -”

“You gotta know how humiliating this is,” Clint said, his voice plaintive. “Fuck, I rode on your shoulder, Bucky. I slept on your goddamn face.”

“I mean,” Bucky said, not sure if it’d help, “I did try to get you to stop.”

Clint made a small frustrated noise, pink rising up on his cheeks.

“And now I’m all human shaped,” he said, “but all the instincts are still there, and whenever I’m around you you just - you don’t smell like *mine*.”

Bucky blinked. Processed that for a moment. Shuffled around some motivations, some behaviours, and felt himself slowly grin.

“You want me to wear your clothes, Clint?” He asked, and Clint - red as a fire truck, now - nodded helplessly.

“Well I guess you gotta take 'em off, first,” Bucky said, and smiled a Cheshire Cat grin.


	10. Chapter 10

Clint watched the beautiful cryptid from the fifth floor pause in front of Clint’s apartment, and he experienced that helpless, awed kinda feeling that sits like champagne on the stomach, like if he’d seen a double rainbow or a baby futzin deer.

“Hey,” he said, low as he could make it, careful, and the cryptid whirled around and scowled at him, shoulders hunched and hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“My heating’s fucked,” he said, harsh and abrupt, and Clint nodded, easing up the last couple steps and toward his front door. The beautiful cryptid edged kinda sideways, eyeing him warily, circling around until he had the escape route of the stairs safely accessible.

“I’ll just grab my tools,” Clint said, jerking his head at his front door, and then winced a little, apologetic. “Gonna have to come into your apartment to fix it, sorry. I can let myself in and get it done when you’re not there, if that works better for you?”

Cryptid scowled at him - remained scowling at him, ‘cos it wasn’t like he’d eased up any since Clint had appeared - but his body language changed. Clint was well aware from the glimpses he’d gotten over the weeks that the guy was jacked, but with his jaw clenched and his shoulders squared he looked like he could hardcore fuck somebody up.

It would be creepy to think 'yes, please,’ about that, so Clint tried really hard not to.

“You know which apartment I’m in?” He said, and Clint winced again. Like, he’d knocked on the guy’s door before, was he really that unmemorable? Also -

“I’m your landlord,” Clint said, a little bemused, “alongside being resident handyman. You didn’t know that?”

The cryptid rubbed a hand across his face; when he removed it again the flash of - what, defeat? - was entirely gone.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at the floor and shrinking down into himself again. “I don’t always remember so good.”

Huh.

Clint sent a smile his way, mind turning this over curiously.

“I can tell you as many times as you need that I’m Clint, man,” he said.

The cryptid smiled and Clint’s goddamn heart let off confetti. “Bucky,” he said.


	11. Chapter 11

“It’s fine, Buck. We’ll figure it out.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes. His time on the Avengers has been peppered with ridiculously weird shit, there’s no question about it; aliens and monsters and sentient furniture ain’t even the half of it. But this broad, with her wild dark hair and her pendants and her herbs, this ain’t exactly scary. 

“What was it she said to you, exactly,” Tony asked, arms folded across his metal chest. “And not ‘vague gist’ exactly, Barnes, gimme at least a decent paraphrase, here.”

“She said I’d forget what was most important to me,” he said, and shrugged, then made an expansive gesture in Steve’s direction. “He’s  _right here.”_

 _“_ Aaw,” Steve said, and clutched at his heart, his smile genuine and warm even if he was bein’ a punk. “Aaw, Buck, I love you too.” Bucky considers, for a moment, putting him in a headlock, but he gets distracted when Barton ducks under the police tape and runs over to him, looking weirdly concerned for how vertical and uninjured Bucky obviously is. 

“Barnes,” he says, moving in all close, “you okay?” 

Bucky kind of startles, ‘cos on the other side of Bucky from Steve and the others, Barton’s grabbed hold of his shirt, got it all rucked up by his hip. 

“Woah,” he says, backing off, knocking Barton’s hand away. “Getting a little friendly there, Barton?” 

The archer sends a quick look at Steve and the others, then back at Bucky, his face going through all kinds of expressions before he finally settles on confused. 

“Sorry,” he says, “sorry. Just wanted to make sure the team was all fine.” 

“Sure,” Bucky says, dismissive - it's not like he even knows the guy that well. “Nothing happened.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Clint comes in whistling, kicks his shoes off by the door, drops his jacket on the back of the couch and comes into the kitchen, wrapping his arms around Bucky so that the posy of flowers he holds presses damp into his stomach. He holds Bucky tight and squeezes him close, and Bucky can feel him smile against the side of his neck. 

“Hey, love,” Clint says, and the gentle wash of warm breath against Bucky’s neck makes him shiver. “Happy anniversary.” 

“You remembered?” he asks, and Clint slides around him, forcing him to lift his arm so Clint can squeeze between him and the sink. 

“I put sticky notes on my tablet,” Clint tells him, “and on the bathroom mirror for before you got up. I got Sam and Steve and Tasha and Kate to send me texts every couple hours. I wrote it on the back of my hand,” he says, and shows Bucky the huge plaster with ‘ry’ just about visible beside it. 

“And you still forgot,” Bucky says, and Clint’s shoulders kinda slump. 

“Yeah, still forgot. I came in and saw the table and ran straight back out again, I didn’t think you saw.” 

“You confused the fuck outta the dog,” Bucky says, and Clint sighs and hands him the flowers, signing  _sorry_  just as soon as his hands are free. 

Bucky gently touches one of the beautiful petals, stroking his finger over its softness and feeling his heart grow a little. 

“You didn’t get these at a gas station, sweetheart,” he says, and Clint shrugs. 

“They didn’t have your favourite.”

Bucky grabs Clint’s hand, pulls it up so he can brush his lips against Clint’s palm. 

“You remembered,” he says. 


	13. Chapter 13

“-ys? Guys? Guys? Bueller?” 

The world faded back in around Bucky, but it still took a couple moments to blink back to reality and allow himself to join it. 

“Um,” he said, and Clint bit his lip and grinned at him, which was just - that was unfairly distracting, how the hell was he supposed to resist -

He leaned back in, ignoring the exasperated noise from Steve, cupping his hand around Clint’s cheek so he could tilt his head just right. He went in slow, this time, languid movement which stayed gentle and within Bucky’s control right up until Clint let out a soft, raw noise into his mouth. Bucky slid his hand around to the small of Clint’s back and hitched him in closer until the buckles on Clint’s vest were pressing bruises through leather into his skin. 

“Yeah, okay,” Sam said distantly, “so they’re gonna get arrested. You can sort bail right, Tony? Me and Steve’ll get tacos.” 

“Clint.” 

Low. Implacable. Natasha. Bucky made a soft noise of protest as Clint pulled away. 

“They are gone, Ptichka,” she said, and Clint blinked, frowned, scanned the area as if his brains were just as scrambled as Bucky’s were. He focused in on the discarded placards on the ground. 

“Ha,” he said. And, “yeah. That was. That was totally why we were -” 

“Nope,” Bucky said, and stepped forward to take Clint’s hand, reassured by how tightly Clint gripped back. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m keeping you, now.” 


	14. Chapter 14

Wanda has had a pretty heavy hand in choosing their costumes this year, and Clint has got to say he’s confused.

“Shouldn’t I be hairier?”

Wanda sighed, sawing through another inch of the fabric of his shirt; it was more hole than shirt, now.

“You’re a werewolf *victim*, not a wolf.” She stepped back and looked him up and down critically. It was a simple enough costume - in addition to the practically non-existent shirt he’d sacrificed a pair of well-loved jeans to the cause of Wanda and her knife. They had been getting a little tight anyway, not equipped to deal with all the superhero muscle he’d put on, and now they were gonna be unwearable. She’d got a little blade-happy and he’d had to ditch his usual purple boxers ‘cos they’d poked through the rips.

Aside from that all his costume seemed to involve was careful streaks of dirt and fake blood along his cheekbone, his collarbone, the line of his jaw.

“Okay,” she said, clapping her hands. “Now you are perfect.”

Clint disagreed.

Clint disagreed *hard*. Perfect was Bucky in his three-piece suit, silver-headed cane, the subtlest darkening around his eyes and under his cheekbones giving the barest suggestion of the skull beneath the skin.

“Shit,” he said, under his breath, then looked quickly at Bucky’s face to see if he’d heard, but his gaze had drifted to somewhere around Clint’s thighs.

Clint was a little worried about how well these jeans would conceal a boner.


	15. Chapter 15

Bucky was laughing helplessly, collapsed in the back of the van, his arms wrapped across his stomach and a strand of hair caught in the corner of his mouth. Clint glowered at him, stalking past with another box helpfully labelled ‘ARROWS!’ in Kate’s perky print. 

Bucky had taken precisely one minute and seventeen seconds to get his shit in the van. Two boxes and a duffel bag, and the fact that he had that much was mostly due to Steve’s insistence on giving him  _stuff_  for his birthdays, these days. 

Clint, on the other hand, had been up and down the stairs maybe fifteen times already, and he refused to let Bucky help, and - oh, shit, now he was walking past with a box with a heavily blacked out sharpie rectangle, ‘BOOKS’ scrawled above it in Clint’s spider scratch. 

“Oh, no,” Bucky said, wiping tears away from the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand, “no, sweetheart, you shoulda gone with action figures or somethin’, there’s no way you’ve got enough books for -” 

“It’s arrows, fuck you,” Clint said, and Bucky collapsed into giggles again. He reached out as Clint marched past on his way back into the apartment, snagging a belt loop and tugging. Clint dragged his feet like a toddler but didn’t do anything to really resist, so Bucky pulled him up square in front of him, hands on Clint’s hips. 

“Hey,” he said, gentle and warm and still curling around the bubbles of laughter in his chest, “hey, baby, I love you, I can’t wait to move in with you you fuckin’ disaster,” and Clint softened and leaned down to kiss him like no one else had ever kissed him, hands cupped around his face. 


	16. Chapter 16

There weren’t enough seats in the conference room, so Bucky leaned against the wall, arms folded and legs crossed. Clint took a seat on a windowsill on the other side of the room, his long legs stretched out and the light from behind him doing indecent fuckin’ things for the line of his jaw. 

It was pretty much impossible to pay attention to the discussion. Not that he would’ve been listening in any case; listening to Steve and Tony endlessly bickering about a fight that had already happened was for chumps. Mostly he just took a nap, planned a sandwich, happily fantasised about Clint’s ass. This time - shit, this time he wasn’t so much fantasising as mooning over the guy, which was pretty outside of the whole post-mission blowjobs routine. 

He just looked like some kinda daydream, haloed by the light like that, and when he caught Bucky looking he ducked his head and bit his lip against a grin. And Bucky was tired but with that post-mission buzz, his resistance was too goddamned low, so as soon as they’d stopped talking and started shifting towards the door Bucky headed right over to where Clint sat. 

Didn’t even have to say a word, not the way Clint immediately shifted his weight and straightened his posture up into him. Bucky lay his hand along the sun-warmed skin of Clint’s jaw, ran the other down the length of his thigh so he could hitch him in a little forward as they kissed, like there was no way they could ever be close enough. 

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

The hotel’s fancier than they usually manage: a ‘concierge’. valet parking, so much gilt in the lobby it probably ought to be arrested. There’s gonna be some kinda gala or something the next night, and his tux is hung up on the wardrobe door right next to Bucky’s, but he’s not gonna be allowed to dance with him, not anywhere they can be seen. 

It’s. He does get the reasoning, kinda. They would not ever be left alone. But he kinda misses the Motel 6s that are as good as he and Bucky usually require, where their doors lead off the parking lots and no one gives a shit about who they are.

He had to sign an autograph in the atrium. The guy looked a little embarrassed to have asked. 

Bucky’s the last one left in the atrium with him, looking impatient and intimidating the natives, ‘cos he gets a little - he doesn’t like to leave Clint alone if he’s actively bleeding, even if it’s just a little road-rash across his face. They step into the elevator together - one of those needlessly fancy glass ones, and Clint is a little sick of the subtle staring - and Clint has to actually hold onto the railing behind him. He’s tired, he’s sore, all he wants to do right now is step into Bucky’s arms. 

“Fuck it,” Bucky says. 

“Fuck it?” Clint asks. He’s looking right into the atrium; there’s at least three people looking back. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, stepping forward smoothly, placing his hands all careful on the parts of Clint that don’t hurt. “Fuck it. Think I’m gonna watch you dress up all fancy and let anyone else hold you in their arms?” 

“Smooth,” Clint says, but he can’t help smiling, curling his arm around Bucky’s waist and pulling him in for a gentle, perfectly visible kiss. 


	18. Chapter 18

Bucky isn’t so great at swimming any more. He  _can_  swim, it’s not impossible, but it takes a hell of a lot of strength and effort to make progress against the dragging weight of his arm. It’s sure as hell not something he does any more for fun. 

Clint, he’s in his goddamn element. A pool is a perfect place for useless acrobatics without having to make an excuse for them; it’s a situation built for a natural show-off, and Clint has been diving off things, flipping off things, encouraging people to stand on his broad fuckin’ shoulders… Bucky ain’t exactly able to keep it subtle, but Clint’s so busy he doesn’t even notice he’s being watched. 

“Tell him,” Steve says as he passes, not a subtle bone in his goddamn perfect body, and Bucky hooks his hand around the guy’s ankle and yanks it out from under him. The shriek he lets out as he falls into the pool is just about the best thing Bucky’s ever heard. 

“Hey Clint,” Tony yells, and he’s hauling something huge and inflated behind him, shaped like a goddamn pineapple. “I found - “

“That’s for Bucky,” Clint calls back, and looks over to him with a stupid-wide grin. He’s standing chest-deep in the water, the sunlight glinting off droplets of water on his shoulders, in his hair, and he’s beautiful in a way that makes Bucky feel weak. 

“Sure,” Tony says, and tosses the pineapple into the water, huge and ungainly and big enough for someone to lie on. 

Bucky regards it, eyebrow raised, and Clint rubs at the back of his neck and looks a little sheepish.

“I figured - you kinda looked like you wanted in on this.”

“He sure as hell wanted  _something.”_

_“_ Shut the fuck up, Stevie,” Bucky says, not looking away from the pineapple that Clint’s holding onto, the way he’s contrived for Bucky to be a part of the team. 

Bucky gives in and slides into the water, a couple of quick efficient strokes taking him over to where Clint is. He slides his hand down Clint’s leg a little, hooks around his ankle, easiest thing in the world to resist. Clint lets him take him off balance, though, lets him pull him underwater with him, where Bucky doesn’t have to listen to Steve crowing when he ducks in for a kiss. 

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

Steve couldn’t help chuckling a little. Clint was sitting opposite him, just about managing to get coffee in his mouth, his hair a mess and a large red bruise just nestled under his jaw. 

“Good night, last night?” he asked, and Clint grinned slowly, looking dazed and helplessly happy. 

The elevator dinged and Bucky came in looking like the cat that had got the damned cream. He sauntered - there was really no other word for it - over to the coffeemaker, poured himself a mug and placed it in front of Clint, just perfectly timed to replace the empty one he was staring at sadly. 

“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, and under all the smug there was that same impossible happiness, the sound of it in his voice filling a little of the hollow place in Steve’s chest. 

Bucky bent down and wrapped his arms across Clint’s chest, pressing two hard kisses against his cheek like he was helpless against them. Clint discarded his coffee and brought his hands up so he could hang on to Bucky’s arms, and Steve’s mouth dropped open when he saw, on Clint’s finger, the glint of gold. 


	20. Chapter 20

Bucky isn’t the man Steve knew. 

He’s someone Steve’s getting to know, and that is something that Steve is grateful for every damned day, but he’s not the person that he was. 

Neither of them are. 

The Bucky that Steve knew - the old Bucky - he kinda let life flow over him. Things didn’t stick, except for Steve, ‘cos he figured he got in there too young and too deep to ever quite winkle out. Most of the time Bucky let things slide off of him with a grin and a wink, couldn’t resist making everything into a joke. 

It did Steve a hell of a lot of good, that’s what his ma always figured. She used to make Bucky take him out, even on her worst days; she always said she wanted him to come back smiling, and somehow with Bucky that was pretty easy. 

What was harder was remembering the names of the dames Bucky danced with, winked at, brought on awkward double dates. Elizabeth Allen, from down at the corner store, told him once that she figured Bucky’s heart had a revolving door. 

After the war, after Hydra, he just kinda figures it won’t open any more. 

So he watches the video of the Stark fundraiser over again. Tony filming himself and Rhodey’s exasperated face, Sam awkward but besotted with Agent - with Maria Hill in the background. And off to one side, Bucky glaring at the camera, until Clint leans in and whispers something, kisses him on the skin just under his ear. 

Bucky’s not the person he used to be, and that wasn’t a smile Steve had ever seen on his face before - but then, he’d never seen Bucky in love. 


	21. Chapter 21

Clint was breathless, panting helpless noises against Bucky’s lips, barely even able to respond to the kiss as his back arched and his hips pushed forward. 

“Shh,” Bucky said, “shh, baby, I’ve got you.” His voice was low, and thick, and he wasn’t sure Clint could hear him over the background noise of the party behind them, just the other side of the balcony’s glass door. 

“Please,” Clint breathed, “ah fuck, fuck, Bucky, please,” and he slung his arm around Bucky’s neck like that was all that was gonna hold him up, here. Bucky smiled helplessly then caught Clint’s lower lip between his, pulling away from grinding with the heel of his hand so he could fumble at Clint’s fly. 

He grabbed Clint’s hand and pulled it away from around his neck, ducking under it like he was dancing, and Clint whimpered as he pulled himself a little further away, guiding Clint backwards until he was leaning against the waist-high wall that surrounded the balcony. 

“You think you can keep your mouth closed, sweetheart?” he asked, pressing a finger across Clint’s lips and then pressing the lightest of kisses there before he slid to his knees. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING FOR SUICIDAL THOUGHTS IN THIS CHAPTER**

This is trust. 

A long time gone, a long time since, a long time in, the Soldier had handed a man a knife. 

It could have been any man. It happened to be a man that the Soldier knew enough about to know that - if a new world order meant breaking him to fit - perhaps it was best that there was no place in the new world for the Soldier. 

He had reversed his grip on the heavy combat knife and nudged the handle into the man’s lax hand. The man had been trembling. The Soldier had wrapped metal fingers over his to try to make him stop. 

He had guided the man’s hand forward, and then viciously up. A macabre pantomime of what the man should do, what the Soldier could not do for himself. 

“Pray,” he had said, shaping his mouth around unfamiliar syllables - and there had been a moment of tangled candle-lit memory, sitting next to a small blond boy, hard wooden pews and  _libera me_  - “pray that you do not miss.” 

The knife had dropped from nerveless, terrified fingers, and the Soldier had felt numb. 

“Inventive,” his handler had told him. And then taken it from him. 

 

 

This is trust:

Bucky lies on his back, held down by Clint’s weight. Bucky arches his head back for Clint’s mouth on the naked vulnerability of his throat. Bucky opens himself up, holds himself wide, trembling hand showing Clint what he wants him to do. 

He opens his mouth and lets his prayers slip out, words unfamiliar through lack of use. 

“Please, love, please -” 


	23. Chapter 23

They’d put water wings on the cup, and it was floating serenely in the midst of all the chaos that a multitude of hockey players could create. Bucky couldn’t help the pang of painful envy - no, he hadn’t wanted  _his team_  to win the damned thing, but he would’ve wanted it for  _a team he was on_  - but he swallowed it down and loosened his fingers from Clint’s hand, preparing to let go. No one had seen them yet, but it was risk enough just bringing Bucky here, let alone -

But Clint wasn’t looking at the cup. He wasn’t looking at the table stacked high with coolers and pizza boxes, or his rioting teammates, or the celebration banner that appeared to have been printed on a dot matrix printer, ‘cos Tony Stark was a law unto himself. Clint was smiling giddily into  _his_ eyes. Was staring at him like winning was nothing in comparison, and Bucky had no idea how that could possibly work. 

He tightened his fingers again a little. Tentative. If anything, Clint’s grin grew wider, and he squeezed a little back. 

“Hey Hawkguy!” someone yelled from the direction of the pool, “you comin’?” 

“Fuck you guys,” Clint shouted cheerfully back, “I’m taking a moment with my boyfriend!” He dragged Bucky forward, though, out of the shadows by the garden gate, towards the well-lit pool, and it took him a second to notice the look on his face. 

“Oh, shit,” Clint said, sheepish. “Should I not have - it’s okay that I love you, right?” 

What else could Bucky do but kiss him, in front of god and everyone and the entire roster of the Avengers, assembled? 

“Gross,” said an amused voice, Natasha the PR piranha, and Clint let out a hilarious screech as they were both shoved into the pool. Bucky took a second to help him get his footing and then cupped his face, pulled him back in.


	24. Chapter 24

Clint slept better these days. 

Bucky wouldn’t like to say he was the sole reason for this - he was sure the steady gig with the Avengers, the counselling sessions Sam had insisted Clint attend, the honest exhaustion from a hard day’s work had an impact. But he was gonna take some of the credit for the sleep, for the idiot smile on his face even when he was snorin’. 

Clint slept best all hauled up close, resting on his chest so he could feel Bucky’s breathing. So he could know when Bucky was talking to him even if he’d taken out his aids. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what Bucky was saying, yet - maybe Bucky wasn’t quite ready to tell him - but Bucky was pretty sure he got the spirit of it. 

Clint breathed in that graceless deep breath that signalled his waking, turning instantly and automatically to press a kiss to Bucky’s chest. 

“Jesus, I love you,” Bucky said, helpless, and leaned down to press a kiss to Clint’s forehead. Clint patted at him sleepily, smiling and falling halfway back into sleep, and Bucky brushed his fingers through tousled golden hair and tried on a smile of his own. 

“Hey,” Clint said later, when he’d found and put in his aids, “you say something?” 

“Yeah.” Bucky took a deep breath, let it out slow. “Yeah, I did.” 


	25. Chapter 25

Every inch of him aches, every last bone and muscle and sinew crowding around to register their complaints. Holding himself up like this is making his biceps yell over the mob, his arms trembling a little at the strain. 

Clint drags his mouth down Bucky’s flawless chest. Presses kisses here and there against skin that won’t hold marks, no matter what he tries, and then licks back up the centre, along Bucky’s sternum. 

Right where the bullet had hit. Knocked him backwards. Right where the body armor hadn’t done enough to hold the back the force of it. 

Bucky hadn’t been able to hold back the grunt of pain, and Clint had felt fear like plunging into ice water. Sudden, painful, unable to draw breath. 

_Oh_ , he’d thought, like drowning.  _It’s like that._

It’s like that. 

Clint holds himself up on shaking arms and presses his mouth to Bucky’s perfect skin, unmarked, somehow untouchable. 

 

 


	26. Chapter 26

Clint’s bedroom had gray walls - what you could see of them past the tacked up flyers, posters and helpless timetables of the hopelessly disorganised. And, shit, were those  _arrow holes_?

He knocked lightly on the door, trying not to look at the desk he’d bent Clint over, trying not to remember the  _sounds_  he’d made. 

“Hey Barton,” he said, softly in deference to the blanket burrito on the bed. His sheets were purple. They hadn’t had the lights on long enough for Bucky to notice. 

Clint didn’t react, and Bucky kinda remembered, through a haze of poor choices, the purple aids he’d had in his ears. He flicked the light on and off, and when that didn’t work, tapped lightly on the end of the bed. 

Clint flinched and tucked himself tighter, pulling down the blankets a little so Bucky could see the dark circles under his eyes. 

“Jesus, you’re a mess,” he said, not without sympathy, and Clint grumbled and reached out for a box on his nightstand, pushing his aids into his ears and wincing as he adjusted the volume. 

“What,” he groused. 

“Your roommate was concerned,” he said. “Part of my job to check up on you.” 

“Still alive,” Clint said, flatly. 

“Sorry for disturbing you, I guess.” Bucky was unreasonably stung. “And you can quit acting like I killed your goddamn dog or whatever,” he said, turning to the door, “‘cos I wasn’t the one who didn’t call.” 

“What?” Clint asked, and Bucky stopped with his door on the handle, more willing than he wishes he were to be called back. “Wait, I can’t read - did I hear that right?” 

There was the sound of Clint flailing against fabric, and then a huff of frustration, and Bucky turned and saw the pathetic huddled heap of him. It was kinda hard to stay mad at that. 

“You didn’t call,” he said. “I told you, if you wanted -” 

“I  _want_ ,” Clint interrupted, wide-eyed. “Shit do I ever - I didn’t hear -  _fuck_.”

Jesus, if he didn’t stop struggling the guy was gonna strangle himself on his bedclothes. Bucky laughed, a little wonder in it, and crouched down by the bed so he could pull the blanket away from Clint’s face. 

“Hey Clint,” he said, Clint’s beautiful blue eyes dropping to watch his mouth, like the sound of it wasn’t enough, “you should call me.” 

But hey, fuck waiting. Bucky cupped his face and kissed him like he’d been wishing he had that night, open and lush and slow. 

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

Clint stirs when his weight shifts the mattress. He’s not got his ears in, ‘cos Bucky is home and - 

Shit. 

_Home_. 

\- and sometimes Clint deserves a damned night off. 

“She up?” Clint mumbles, without quite opening his eyes, and Bucky can still smell baby powder and faintly sour milk, can still feel her helpless, trusting weight against his chest and he never, he  _never_  thought he’d have this, Jesus. 

“No,” he says, like he’s not dying of it, like he’s not living for the first fucking time. How the hell do people - how can they feel this much and not - 

“Mmkay,” Clint says, already drifting off, and Bucky rocks forward to kiss him on the cheek, trying to keep his breath steady against Clint’s cheek. 

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

Clint gets papercuts. 

Literally of course - how fuckin’ fragile can one man be? - and metaphorically. A moment’s falter, a slight dip in his smile, and that’s the only way you can tell that something innocuous has been handled wrong, cut just exactly the wrong way. 

He’s got calluses all over his hands and a heart that’s baby-soft and so easily hurt. Bucky wants to protect him, cut him off from the world, and he knows Clint wouldn’t thank him for it.

Can’t help it, though, arching over him, letting his hair fall down between them and the world. Can’t take his damn eyes off the look on Clint’s face, the way he looks a little stunned, a little apologetic, like he knows the world is gonna take this back but he’s wishing with every atom he has that please, please not yet. 

“I’m right here,” Bucky says, low and as gently as he knows how. 

“What?” Clint asks, voice surprised and kiss breathless, “no, I know, I know that.” 

Bucky presses his forehead against Clint’s and kisses him again, another point of contact, another few inches that no one will hurt with him here. 


	29. Chapter 29

Barnes stalks over to him, shoulders and jaw squared, every line of him drawn heavy and crisp.

“Just go with it,” he snaps out, and Clint nods automatically and then rocks backwards as Barnes grabs onto his face with both hands and presses a kiss to his idiot mouth that’s too goddamn startled to ease up a little, get a taste. 

“What?” he asks, and Barnes rests their foreheads together; it probably looks better from a distance, without the angry eyes. 

Barnes doesn’t answer, just kisses him again, and Clint lets instinct take over, tilting his head a little and softening his lips, curving his arm around Barnes’ waist. 

“I mean,” he says, breath just a little short, “not that I don’t appreciate -” 

Barnes has eased a little, a different kind of intensity in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth quirks into something like a smile before he presses a couple quick blunt kisses to Clint’s mouth rather than listening to him babble. It’s probably a wise choice. Many have made it before. 

“Might’ve put my foot in it with the press,” Bucky says. “Help a fella out?” 

Clint glances over his shoulder at the camera flashes, the endless telescope lenses pointed their way. 

“Just in public, right?” he asks, and Bucky snorts. 

“Where else?”

“Right,” Clint says, over the sinking sensation. “Sure.” 


	30. Chapter 30

Bucky thinks about this morning. About Clint’s look of shock and instant heat. He thinks about the way he’d moved across the room - so intent - and how it’d made Bucky’s mouth go dry. 

He thinks about how Clint hadn’t stopped when he’d hit the wall of Bucky’s chest - how he’d kept moving, making Bucky back up until he was pressed with his back by the front door, his keys falling to the floor with a jangling crash. 

How Clint had gone straight for the sensitive skin just below and behind Bucky’s ear, and Bucky’s knees had gone a little weak. 

He thinks about the kiss that had followed, about Clint’s fingers running through his hair, then clenching and tugging until Bucky had almost come in his pants. 

The haircut had apparently been a hit. It’s worth, he thinks, the way Steve can’t stop laughing at the fucking earmuffs. 

 

 


	31. Chapter 31

Clint shuffled out of Bucky’s closet, wearing a familiar faded purple hoodie. It was all stretched out of shape, didn’t fit him quite right, like someone else had been wearing it too damned much. 

“Didn’t know you still had this,” he said, sounding quietly delighted. 

Bucky turned to face the TV, ‘cos blushes didn’t show up so well in the flickering blue light; Clint had brought over something dumb and full of explosions and shitty one-liners, and the joke there was just low-hanging fruit. 

“C’mon,” he said, and Clint limped over and climbed carefully onto the bed, regarding the pile of pillows Bucky had made for him with a tiny smile on his face. 

Bucky was starting to figure they were on the same page, here. He wondered if the patented yawn an’ stretch was warranted, but Clint took care of that by shuffling in close and making grumpy faces until Bucky huffed, rolled his eyes, lifted his arm so Clint could make himself comfortable and close. 

Jesus, this was stupidly teenage; Bucky could feel his heart beating kinda fast, the sweet ache of his motor runnin’, as Clint leaned his head on his shoulder. 

“I’m not reading this wrong, right?” Bucky said, the minute people quit running and screaming on screen; the minute he knew that Clint would hear. 

Clint didn’t answer, just lifted his head, his pupils dilated in the darkness and his mouth catching the shine from the screen. 

“Fuck,” Bucky said, caught off-guard and helpless, and Clint grinned so goddamn happy and ducked in to kiss the curse outta his mouth. 


	32. Chapter 32

Clint disappears into Bucky’s kisses. How could he help it? There’s no hope for background noise when his heart is pounding so loudly in his ears, and the casual possession in the way Bucky strokes over the back of Clint’s neck, tangles his fingers in his hair - 

He always blinks up out of them like he’s been dreaming. 

Under the bleachers, the sunlight falls in parallel lines, a careless shift of the head blinding you. Or - if you’ve positioned it right, if your back’s to the sun - one small movement and it’s the line of Bucky’s jaw blinding you instead. The vulnerability of his ears. The dazzled beauty of his eyes. And with Clint’s back to the sun, maybe Bucky can’t see the way he’s looking, too. The way his eyes linger. 

“Huh?” he asks, and Bucky grins, flippant and casual and not even breathing hard. 

“English class,” he says, and summons Clint with a jerk of the head. 

Clint follows, wordlessly, blindly obedient. How could he help it?


	33. Chapter 33

Clint was a quiet kid. Clint learned, early on, to be a quiet kid. He didn’t always manage it, but climbing mostly worked where quiet didn’t, and he -

_get back here, you little shit_

\- mostly managed to be what was wanted from him.

Sometimes, though, the quiet built up. Nothingness forced into the space behind his sternum like a balloon overfilled with air until he had to run or scream or laugh or _explode_ with it, just to make the space for him to breathe.

His mom and Barney did a pretty decent job of recognising the warning signs, hustling him out of the house to a park or a playground or an alley behind the building where they lived, letting him run or climb or tumble himself exhausted, letting him shrink down into the size he was supposed to be.

His mom got tired, though. Barney got older and harder, built up calluses where Clint used to be. And then one night when his mom was flinching at every noise she made in the kitchen, when his dad was coiling tighter and tighter in his chair, Clint stood in front of her and let out all the nothingness in a yell that did a hell of a job of breaking the silence.

Then his dad -

-

\- he made sure the silence came back.

*

The aids they made him wear were chunky and flesh-colored. They were too visible, made him stick out. Barney sometimes hid them on days when there were visitors to the orphanage, ‘cos no one wanted to take on a difficulty like Clint. It backfired; how the hell could he judge, without their help, when he was being too goddamn loud?

What the hell was Barney supposed to do but get them out of there? What the hell was Clint supposed to do but go with him?

The circus was… kind of a revelation. It seemed like everyone there was just as loud as they could possibly want. Everything was light and color and noise and smells, too much to look at and too much to experience and too much to _be_. Sure, Duquesne and then Trickshot were shaving off the edges of him, training him into the shape and size and volume that they wanted, but there was always someplace to let himself out where no one could hate him for it.

Hell, the crowd _loved_ it, when he was inside the ring.

“Barney,” Clint hissed between their bunks, in the middle of the night. “Barney, Barn.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry I’m loud sometimes.”

The hiss of Barney’s shirt against sheets. A shrug, maybe.

“Sometimes you gotta be. ‘sides, the crowd loves it, and you get paid for it, and I ain’t going back to shovelling shit.”

“Right.” Right.

“Now shut the fuck up, Clint, I’m trying to sleep.”

*

There was always some variation of that. Shut the fuck up, Clint, I’m trying to - sleep. Work. Study. Steal.

It was fine. He’d always been too loud.

And then Natasha taught him that beating the shit out of something worked almost as well. She tolerated his tangents, let him shake out his nonsense in tales of the circus, and sometimes she let him do it with a smile on her face.

And she taught him how to vent himself quietly. How to focus his energy into small controlled movements, how to use up his energy without making a noise. But when they could, when it was safe, she never asked him to stop talking. He was always gonna goddamn love her for that.

*

Bucky Barnes - initially, he left Clint speechless. Startled and dumbstruck and aching a little somewhere in his chest.

It didn’t last - he was never gonna be able to stay silent for too long - but it was a pretty big fuckin’ clue that there was something different here.

Bucky was quiet at first, and Clint learned to fill in the space around him with noise. Not too much, just a little release valve so Clint didn’t lose it and so Bucky learned to navigate in spaces that weren’t silent. Clint didn’t push it too far, too fast; Clint was wary at every moment of any hint that he should shut the fuck up.

Bucky didn’t tell him to, though. He just learned to talk back.

Clint yelled and Bucky yelled back at him, half laughing, gesturing wide and filling the space with their voices and their selves. Clint climbed and tumbled and Bucky told him to do it again, bet he couldn’t, challenged him, pushed.

Something other than goddamn nothingness was making its way into Clint’s chest, and he was terrified that he was gonna fuck this up. So he pushed. So he made noise. Like an awful compulsion to see what would be too far.

 _how many legs do squids have?_ Clint texted, at a carefully calculated 3:47am, and he waited for the annoyance, the anger, the instructions not to text him dumb shit in the middle of the night.

_fuck if i know lets go to the aquarium tomorrow & see_

Clint breathed out some of the nothingness so he could make room for his stupid dumb heart.


	34. Chapter 34

“I don’t get it,” Bucky said, idly throwing another bullseye from where he was sprawled on the unmade bed.

Clint emerged from behind his closet door in a pair of boxers and a hoodie that - there was no way that that could ever have fit him. It looked like it’d been built for the Hulk, huge and purple, falling down soft around his thighs.

“People don’t,” he said, and Bucky had a moment of stupid hurt that Clint was lumping him in with some kinda collective - he’d thought they were somehow outside of that. Clint shrugged one shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest and the ends of his sleeves dangling past his fingers. He looked so young. “I guess I’m not very good at explaining it.”

Bucky sat up and leaned back against the wall, tucking a pillow behind the small of his back.

“So try me,” he said. “I ain’t going anywhere.”

Clint made a face. Wry, a little sheepish; someone preparing to be misunderstood, preparing to apologise for it.

“I don’t like the uniform,” he said.

“Okay,” Bucky said, neutral. He scratched at his stubble, loud in the silence, ‘cos Clint didn’t seem like he was gonna go on. “I mean. I thought you designed a lot of it? Steve vetoed the - tunic, miniskirt thing, but -”

Ah. Clint’s posture had tightened a little, and Bucky wanted to go fold him up in his arms, but he sensed that this wasn’t the moment for it.

“This is about what you wanna wear?”

“No,” Clint answered back quickly, defensive. “It’s -”

“It’s about who you are,” Bucky said slow, thoughtful, unsure he was getting that right until the smile bloomed on Clint’s face.

“Fuck, I love you,” Clint said, and Bucky wasn’t sure he’d done anything to deserve that fervour but Jesus Christ he was gonna hold onto it with both hands, even if one of them wasn’t really his.

“So -” Bucky spread his hands a little, opening his posture, making sure there was nothing to look like rejection. “I’m not sure I get it. You’re - a dame?”

“No,” Clint said instantly, but there wasn’t anything angry or accusatory about it. And then he made a face and looked away. “Mostly not.”

“But you’re not always a fella either,” Bucky said, feeling his way through this, and Clint let out an explosive noise and clamped a hand over that gorgeous mouth, turning away, shoulders hunched and back rigid.

“Oh sweetheart.” Bucky shoved himself off the side of the bed, hurrying over, hovering just above strong shoulders with anxious hands. “Did I - I didn’t mean to get it wrong, I swear I’m -”

Clint spun and pushed against him, folded into him, and Bucky wrapped his arms around shaking shoulders as hot breath and silent tears dampened his neck.

“I hate -” Clint heaved out, barely understandable, barely coherent - “uniforms are - I can’t be the goddamned same every day, I _can’t_ -”

Bucky rocked them both gently. “We’ll fix it, darlin’. We’ll put in a goddamn clothing rail on the quinjet, whatever the hell you need, okay? We can take out Sam’s seat, who needs that guy, right?”

Clint snorted out an inelegant laugh, and Bucky ran his fingers through short blond hair, his heart pushing at the bounds of his chest.

“Hey Clint,” he said, soft as anything, “I love you. It’s good to meet you."


	35. Chapter 35

“So I’m assuming you knew those guys.”

Bucky, tall, dark and beautiful, reappeared in the doorway, a smear of Clint’s blood on his face - that practically meant they were going steady, right?

“I refuse to believe you don’t have bandages in this place,” he said, scowling at the undershirt Clint had clamped to his shoulder. Clint was leaning against the desk, a patch of floor that Bucky had run careful fingers over before he’d shoved him down there, wary of broken glass.

“They’re in the filing cabinet, under O,” Clint said. “For ouch,” he finished, like it was obvious, in answer to Bucky’s incredulous look. “So I’m assuming,” Clint raised his voice to repeat, as Bucky disappeared into the small boxroom that was filled with the filing cabinet, several dusty file boxes, three dead plants and a stuffed raccoon; “I’m assuming you _know_ those guys.”

“Why?” Bucky called back, his voice like a honeycomb filled with smooth sweet honey and a hundred angry bees. “I refuse to believe you ain’t made someone angry enough to plug you.”

“I make people mad enough they want to make it personal,” Clint said, tilting his head back against the wood in the hopes that’d take the room he was in off the carousel it was riding. “I get stabbed at least once every year.”

“You must be very proud,” Bucky told him, kneeling down at Clint’s side.

“Still alive,” Clint said, sucking air in between his teeth as Bucky prodded at his shoulder, the washcloth freezing but still as warm as the faucet would ever run. Clint took this moment while he was distracted to indulge in a clear look at his face.

Bucky had a face like something that should be in an art gallery. Not really Clint’s area, ‘cos his idea of culture was the races, or going down to the pictures on a Saturday night. He’d earned a little extra cash though, once or twice, keeping an eye on one of those fancy galleries where they kept their money on the wall instead of in the bank like everybody else. Clint had done his walk around like they asked him, shining a flashlight around every corner and through every open door, but there’d been one picture in particular that he’d kept coming back to. One of those ones where they dressed up dirty pictures in their Sunday best, calling 'em saints like that made them a little less nude. It wasn’t the strategic greenery that’d held his attention, though, it was the look on the guy’s face.

It was the same look Bucky wore now, his hands unexpectedly gentle as they placed gauze over his wounds. He didn’t wear it on the surface of his skin, placed there openly for the whole world to read; the caring and sorrow and wear were tucked in close and almost hidden, just about visible at the corners of his eyes, in the tight line of his beautiful mouth.

“You’re a saint,” Clint said, and Bucky tied off the bandage with a jerk that made him bite down a curse, a scowl on his face, like Clint wasn’t being as honest as the day is long.


	36. Chapter 36

Bucky made his way down the wooden stairs, halting just outside the door to the bar to take a deep breath. He glanced back at the door to the outside world, the acid white streetlights and the falling rain, and he clenched the fist that wasn’t quite his.

A couple walked past him, the girl with her hair dressed in pin curls, wearing bright lipstick and a floral dress, low heels and seamed stockings, and the tight jeans and oversized plaid shirt on the guy with her was somehow both jarring and settling. They clattered down the stairs, her heels echoing off the brickwork, and pushed open the doors at the bottom, the glass panels in them etched with the name of the place, ‘Joe’s’.

Bucky breathed out a quiet curse and walked down behind them, his head ducked low as he pushed through the doors.

The room inside had dark wood furniture, low lighting, big band music playing over unobtrusive speakers somewhere. It was full of laughter and chatting and a little dancefloor where a few couples were swaying awkwardly together. It smelled like warmth and damp wool and alcohol, and it held the echoes of dreams he couldn’t quite remember.

Speaking of dreams, Bucky caught a glimpse of blond by the bar and his head turned like it was magnetised.

Clint was looking a little awkward, his jacket hooked a little back by the hands he’d shoved deep into the pockets of his slacks. The leather suspenders emphasised the breadth of his chest, and he was wearing a hat pushed a little too far back on his head so Bucky could see how his hair was neatly parted, smoothed down careful with some kinda pomade, the comb tracks clear.

Bucky walked straight over to him, reaching out to take his hand, the calluses so familiar when they wove their fingers together.

“You like?” Clint said, smiling lopsided and a little hopeful, and Bucky hooked a bar stool with his foot and sat down so he could draw Clint in between his legs, wrap his free arm around the back of Clint’s neck and pull him in for a kiss that was only just about appropriate for company.

Bucky pulled away eventually, tucked his nose into Clint’s collar where he smelled exactly the way he should, moving his hand down to where he could slide it under his jacket and around his waist, the other still safe in Clint’s possession.

He wasn’t sure what to say. He thought Steve would love this place, although he’d maybe get a little doleful he couldn’t bring Peggy, but Steve hadn’t really done a whole lot of living since. Bucky wasn’t the guy who’d loved this kind of place, but the guy Bucky had been sure as hell wouldn’t be here with Clint, and that was the part that was most important of all. That he’d cared enough to do it -

“I love it,” Bucky said, “I love you,” pressing a kiss against Clint’s jaw, where apparently no one had managed to convince him that the convention was to be clean-shaven. “Gimme a second to get a drink, and then you an’ me are dancing, doll.”


	37. Chapter 37

The lurching monstrosity that came through the portal has finally stopped lurching, the portal it came through has been firmly stitched shut - or whatever, Clint doesn’t understand magic - and Clint has decided that he deserves pancakes.

Screw it, they can all deserve pancakes, Clint is magnanimous in his sharing of credit, but he needs pancakes  _now_ , Steve, not when the cleaning up is done.

Steve looks up at the huge creature, at the enormous puddles of slime, at the broken glass and shattered concrete, and sighs.

“We’re probably gonna have to wait for the CDC in any case,” he says, and he’s practically persuaded, Clint can hear it in his voice.

“C'mon,” Clint says to Wanda, who is both closest and most likely to make a good impression on the staff of the diner they’re headed for, having missed out on the majority of the slime. “Let’s go get a couple booths.”

Clint winds up squashed up against a window, Wanda next to him with Bucky on the end, and opposite them are Steve, Sam and Nat. Clint’s already got his fingers wrapped around a cup of bitter coffee, and next time the waitress comes back he’s gonna try to get her to leave them the pot. It should be some kinda universal statute that portals only open after 9am, that should be a goddamn rule.

"You guys ready to order?”

Clint turns, the prospect of pancakes able to disrupt even the deepest coffee haze, and is treated to the sight of Bucky Barnes at his most charming, grinning up at the waitress who is visibly unmoved.

(Man, Clint needs her as a mentor, a guru, possibly a minor god. He’s willing to make sacrifices to Clara, The Diner Waitress, if she can teach him how to keep breathing when Bucky Barnes smiles.)

“Hey there, sweetheart,” Bucky says, and Clint ducks his head and stares deep into the bottomless void of his coffee, ‘cos he’s losing all control of the colour of his goddamn cheeks.

It’s not even like this is a rare occurrence. Now Bucky’s settled more into himself, blended who he is with his memories of who he used to be, he’s all sorts of charming to everyone he meets. He calls Wanda Little Red, and makes Bruce smile every time he calls him Brains. Hell, he called FRIDAY Doll, the other day, and Clint wouldn’t call himself jealous, exactly, but he’d had to go stand on the roof for a bit.

See, Clint’d even go for one of the insulting but fond pet names that Bucky tosses at Sam, if he had to, 'cos it hurts a little that he’s only ever been Clint. Even when they’re in the dark together, wrapped up all warm, Bucky breathing out soft curses and pleas against his neck, even then it’s  _Clint, please,_  and  _fuck, oh Jesus, Clint,_  and Clint refuses to feel bad that he’d like to be someone’s sweetheart, just once.

“Clint,” Wanda says, nudging him hard in his side, and then Bucky’s voice is coming from the other side of her.

“Don’t wanna get between a man and his coffee,” he says. “My - Clint’ll have pancakes, with every syrup you got on the side.”

And Clint looks at him over Wanda’s head, his eyes a little wide at the slip, and the way Bucky’s looking back at him -

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says.


	38. Chapter 38

“Shit,” Clint said, looking down at himself, looking around. “Shit, is this a date?”

Bucky stared at him for a long moment and, incidentally, the candlelight did really beautiful things to the colour of his hair. Clint didn’t have long to appreciate that, though, ‘cos once he was done with the incredulous staring, Bucky shook his head, stood, walked out. And just to make Clint feel that little extra layer of shitty, he even paid the check on his way to the door.

*

Clint wasn’t stupid, but he sure as hell was dumb.

He scuffed along the sidewalk, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and ignored the rain that was doing its goddamn best to soak him right through to the skin. He didn’t know much about the neighbourhood he was in, but the alleyways had little wrought iron arches over them, and not one streetlight was flickering. Last place he’d taken *Bucky* to eat, they’d had to eat off cardboard ripped from the boxes behind the counter, 'cos the place hadn’t got even one clean dish.

It’d been damned good pizza, though.

He could fix this, he was sure he could fix this, he just wasn’t sure he could fix this in a way that ended with Bucky’s face on his face. 'cos he’d thought about Bucky like that, of course he’d thought about Bucky like that, the guy was just about the most beautiful thing Clint had ever seen. He’d just put him firmly in the fantasy box almost as soon as he’d met him, 'cos even more than beautiful  
the guy was so much *fun* and there was no way he wanted to lose that.

'cos Clint wasn’t stupid, but he sure as hell was dumb.

He’d dismissed the grins Bucky shot at him as friendship, served up the touches he figured the guy’d been missing for the last seventy years. He’d gone along for food with him, and drinks with him, and movies with him, and he’d hurt in his gut through every last moment where he wished that Bucky wanted exclusively, *significantly* to be there with *him*.

Maybe he *was* stupid after all. And if Bucky had been trying to kiss him at the drive-in, when Clint had sighed outta the window and pined for the possibility that he might, Clint was gonna make Tony invent time-travel purely so Clint could go kick himself in the nads.

Clint climbed stone steps, took a couple minutes to spring the lock on the front door, walked up endless stairs with a drip hanging off the end of his nose, dripped dolefully on a doormat while he knocked on a nondescript door.

“Hey,” he said, after the long pause had reluctantly conceded an inch of opening, and smiled kinda sadly at the one eye he could see.

“Jesus, you’re a pathetic sight,” Bucky said, and Clint pulled out his shirt-tails and wrung them out onto the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, miserable and wet and so scared he’d missed his chance, “I’m so sorry, I’m so stupid -”

“You’re not stupid,” Bucky argued, rolling his eyes and pulling the door open a little more, “but you sure as hell are dumb.” 

 

 


	39. Chapter 39

His rucksack wouldn’t zip up around the supersized box of Count Chocula, so Bucky had just shrugged and left it hanging open, following Steve across the parking lot to the Target and nodding along vaguely to his traditional Capitalist Christmas rant. (He’s recorded it, and Peter had done something called autotune to it, and that’s Tony’s Christmas present, right there.)

Bucky swears when he sees the magazine rack by the checkout.

“Where do they even get this shit?”

“They’ve said worse about Tony and me,” Steve says with a shrug, and Bucky sighs and heads for the toys section, glowering down everything in his path.

“Yeah, but at least that had some kinda basis in reality. I liked it better when they were scared of me.”

He wanders down the aisles, pondering the various offerings, and then his face lights up.

“Tony’s gonna kill you,” Steve says, resigned, but that doesn’t stop Bucky from getting down the giant neon monstrosity of a gun, grabbing ten packets of foam projectiles while he’s at it.

“Come on, Clint’ll love it,” Bucky says, and Steve sighs and lets Bucky tuck it under his arm, telling him to get one for himself, too.

“Ooh, yeah, that way I can kick his ass!”

“Don’t you guys get enough of this in your day job?”

Bucky makes a dismissive noise and heads deeper into the ranks of toys. The only walkie-talkies he can find that’re purple also have huge pink flowers printed on them, but he figures Clint won’t mind.

On their way to the checkout Steve makes a considering noise, and Bucky dismisses it. “Nah, not Nemo, he’s got dad issues. Grab the Band-Aids with the butterflies, at least half of those’re purple.”

They deposit their haul on the conveyer belt, and Steve grabs a magazine and chucks it on there, too. Bucky grabs at his heart.

“Et tu, Steven?”

“You know Tony’ll get a kick out of it,” he said, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“And I know you’d do just about anything to make the man smile.” He glares at the cover, ‘WINTER SOLDIER’S SECRET HYDRA BABY’ printed across it in glaring pink. “Where does this bullshit come from,” he asked, grabbing a pack of candy necklaces for Clint and tossing them on the pile of toys, “when they ain’t even picked up on my thing with Clint?”


	40. Chapter 40

“Hey asshole,” Bucky called, as soon as he heard keys in the door, “you know I can tell when you move my label on the cheesecake, right? No fuckin’ way the slice was that small last night, I -”

“Sure,” Clint said, kicking his purple Crocs off by the door, “sorry.”

Aw, shit. He never gave in that easy, not unless it’d been a hell of a day, and Bucky grabbed a mug, some milk from the microwave, the packet of mini marshmallows he’d hidden under the granola.

He was just reaching up for the hot chocolate mix when Clint shuffled into the doorway in the dumb superhero socks with the little capes and the hole in the toe. Bucky watched him lean his head against the doorframe, watched him try on a smile like he wasn’t sure it still fit him.

These days were honestly the worst to share a place with him. Not ‘cos he was an asshole - if Bucky was honest, Clint was probably a *better* housemate when he’d had a rough day. Quieter. More considerate. Neater. Less *Clint*. Just, these were the days where it was hardest to resist -

Aaw, fuck it. Who was he kidding? There was pretty much no version of Clint that Bucky didn’t want. Cackling-Mario-Kart-and-boxers Clint, obnoxious-best-shot-in-the-world Clint, tuneless-crooning-in-the-shower Clint. Every goddamn iteration of Clint was a Clint that Bucky wanted to kiss, but bad fuckin’ day Clint made him slip into the territory of *feelings*, and Bucky would mostly rather those stayed buried in the sand.

Bucky tossed the mug of milk in the microwave and went over to squeeze Clint’s shoulder, sliding his hand up to the back of his neck where his hair was getting too long.

“You’re okay,” he said. “I got this,” and Clint tried another of those smiles, swore, hid his face in the inside of his elbow where the skin was so soft and easily bruised. Bucky slid his hand up into Clint’s hair for a second, wishing he could tug him closer, but this wasn’t the goddamn moment to be a dick, make it all about him.

The microwave beeped like a miracle, like a rescue, and Bucky went over to grab the mug and stir hot chocolate powder into it, popping a handful of marshmallows on the top. His hot chocolate was for shit, frankly, 'cos growing up Steve had all these saucepans and spices and measuring spoons so he’d never exactly got the practice. Clint was always grateful, though. Told him it was just exactly like his brother used to make; apparently that was one of the few Barney memories that was *good*.

Bucky grabbed the silicone sleeve from the draining board, where the grater was wearing it as a little hat, and shoved it in place as he walked over to Clint, so the thing was safe to push into Clint’s hand, wrap his fingers around the warmth of it.

He went to move away - step two of the routine was always where Bucky ran him a warm bath, shoved in all the weird fruity bubbly things Kate occasionally left - but Clint’s free hand hooked into the hem of his shirt, holding him still.

“Buck,” Clint said, his voice all hairline cracks, and Bucky swore softly under his breath and stepped into him, wrapping his arms around him where they’d fit.

“It’s okay,” he said, soft as anything, soft as the things he always tried to hide away, “it’s okay, sweetheart. I got you.”

“Oh fuck,” Clint hiccupped, his back unsteady under Bucky’s hands, “fuck, Bucky, I love you,” he said fast and desperate, “but please don’t fucking leave.”


	41. Chapter 41

There was the gentle rap of knuckles against his bedroom door; it was easy to tell who had come calling when you were dating a guy with a metal hand. Clint squinted and rolled over, his hooded sweater hissing against the sheets.

“Bucky? I thought you were coming back Thursday.”

Bucky twitched a little, and Clint made a vague gesture towards where his phone lay on the bedside table, its screen undisturbed and dark.

“…I forgot to charge it,” he said, realising the depth of his stupidity all over again. “I set an alarm, I swear.” His mouth was gluey and now he actually turned to his mind to it he was thirsty as hell, which would make sense if it actually was Thursday. “Shit, sorry,” he said, dropping the words, inadequate, into the hollow space behind his sternum that his idiocy always opened up. “I’m sorry, I meant to -” Clint waved a hand towards the door, towards the stairs and the apartment they led down to. He’d meant to clean up, he’d meant t0 vaccuum up the Cheeto dust and dog hair, he’d meant to wash the dishes that’d moved in next to the sink. He’d meant to be clean and dressed and upright to welcome Bucky home, maybe cook something, buy in some beer.

The weight of all the shit he hadn’t done, all the ways he’d managed to disappoint, made him want to close his eyes again. You didn’t have to deal with shit when you were asleep.

“Hey,” Bucky said, and he sounded tired, and Clint could just bet that there was frustrated right along in there, concealed underneath. The mattress creaked as Bucky sat himself down, set to unbuckling and unlacing his boots. Clint wasn’t expecting the wash of warm breath on his forehead, and his eyes flicked open - when had he closed them? - when chapped lips pressed against the lines he’d worried into being there. “Hey,” Bucky said again, and he looked as tired as he sounded, and dusty, with a bruise fading itself into nothing along the line of his jaw. “Don’t get lost in your head again, huh?”

Clint heaved himself up into sitting, leaning back against the headboard, his arms feeling like lead. He reached out to fumble at one of the fastenings on Bucky’s body armor, but Bucky’s hand wrapped around his and held his fingers still.

“I’m good,” he said, and he smiled, and Clint hated that he couldn’t see the annoyance that had to be hiding there. It was heavy and slow, waking up in the middle of the day, and he was weighed down with it; he yawned and tried not to let his eyelids fall closed.

“C'mon,” Bucky said, and he’d shrugged off most of his clothes, his shirt dangling from his hand and the button on his pants undone. Clint gestured feebly in his direction, and Bucky laughed, grabbed his hands and hauled him upright, ready with a shoulder to lean on when Clint’s knees weren’t quite ready to take the weight. He walked them through to the bathroom and then deposited Clint on the closed toilet lid while he turned on the water and filled the bath.

“I hate this,” Clint said miserably, as Bucky pulled the thick gray socks off his feet and peeled the sweatpants he’d had on for at least three days down his legs. “I hate that you have to do this for me, I hate that I can’t -”

“Clint, sweetheart,” Bucky said, pulling him to his feet and coaxing him over to the bath, easing him down into the water and then carefully climbing in behind him. The water sloshed over the sides a little, then settled like Bucky as he wrapped an arm across Clint’s chest, pulled him back to settle between his thighs and against his chest. “This is what I needed,” he said, pressing his mouth, between his words, against the skin of Clint’s neck. “This was all I was thinkin’ about, while I was away from you.”


	42. Chapter 42

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“I’m -” Bucky gaped, and he could feel the warmth as a wash of colour rose to his cheeks. “I’m *cute*? You -”

“Look, you asked, I told, you can’t -”

“- broke into a goddamned art gallery because -”

“- get mad at me for telling the truth, Sergeant Barnes!”

“- you think I’m *cute*?!”

“I’ve done worse to impress a guy.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, taking in a slow breath and counting to ten.

“This is insane,” he said. “You get this is insane, right?”

The Hawk leaned against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle, wearing a smirk below his distinctive purple mask like there wasn’t bulletproof glass between them, like he wasn’t trapped and gonna end up in jail.

“I mean, it’s not the first time that’s been said.” He shrugged, and Bucky cursed himself soundly when his eyes dropped to the breadth of the guy’s shoulders, his biceps where his body armor left them bare.

“Well I hope this was worth it,” he said, and reached for the radio hooked onto his stab vest, wincing as it only squealed feedback when he pressed the button.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the Hawk said. “We got a guy who does that kinda thing. Hacker, problems with authority, you know how it goes.”

“We?” Bucky asked - hey, he was preventing the guy from attempting an escape, attempting to source information about his operation, and that was the only reason he was keeping the guy talking. Wasn’t like he was interested, not even a little.

“Oh yeah,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. Bucky’s mouth went a little dry. “Yeah, there’s a whole team of us. See, we figure someone’s gotta stand up for the little guy - these big corporations, they take what they want. We steal it back.”

“So you’re, what, Robin Hood?”

“If the natty green hat fits,” the Hawk said. He grinned, wide and pretty, and Bucky fleetingly wondered what he looked like under the mask. “I’m the thief, my best friend’s a grifter, Tony looks after the machines. Then there’s the honest man who keeps us all in line, plans the heists, picks the clients. He’s our golden boy,” he said, and his grin slid sideways and back into a smirk, and Bucky felt a creeping suspicion that he really didn’t wanna have to look at straight on.

Stevie’s new guy, the one he’d been fluttering over for weeks, hadn’t he been called - ?

“Hate to love you and leave you,” the Hawk said, as there was the distinctive whine of an electric screwdriver from somewhere behind the bulletproof glass, “but I’m afraid that’s my ride. You ever get sick of being a boy scout, we could always use someone who’s good with their fists.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, coming back to attention, taking a couple futile steps forward when a coil of rope hit the floor beside the Hawk. “Hey, *no*!”

“Clint,” a woman’s voice snapped, somewhere overhead, but Bucky could barely hear it, too busy seeing goddamned red.

“Aaw,” the Hawk whined, wrapping the rope around his arm and starting to reluctantly climb, “but he’s so cute when he’s mad.”


	43. Chapter 43

“We’re not going after Bucky.”

Steve’s arms were braced on the table and his jaw was clenched, and for about the thousandth time Clint wondered how the hell a guy like him had ended up with their ragtag crew. Clint wouldn’t say he was evil, precisely, but the black socks of moral dubiousness had snuck in with his conscience a few times in the wash. Natasha made no bones about the fact that she was in this solely for the money, and Tony had a flexibility within his moral code that seemed to fluctuate based on which outcome would let him use the coolest tech.

“You’re right,” Tony said, flicking something off his tablet and into mid-air, like that was something that people just did. “You’re absolutely right, Steve, we’re not going after Bucky. We’re going after Bucky’s employers, which is an entirely different thing.”

“Tony,” Steve said, and when Tony tried to keep going with his silver-tongued patter he slammed his fist into the table hard enough to spill Clint’s coffee.

“Steve,” Tasha said. Soft, low; a warning. Nobody got to hurt Tony but her.

“I can’t,” Steve said. “You know what he’s been through, you know how many times he’s been betrayed, you can’t ask me to -”

“So we ask *him* to,” Clint said, and shrugged when everyone looked his way. “What,” he said, “you think Bucky’s moral compass would let him work for those guys if he knew what they’d done?”

Clint had done his research, okay. That wasn’t usually his job, but Steve had insisted Tony’s usual background checks weren’t necessary when it came to his best friend, ‘cos what was there that was gonna help them that he didn’t already know? And as much as Clint liked Steve, *respected* Steve, he’d been down the route of blind trust before. Now he went into everything with his eyes wide open.

(Also, most nights. He spent most nights with his eyes wide open, 'cos exhaustion was a hell of a lot better than the dreams.)

“So you think -” Steve’s voice was slow, figuring through this.

“So I think we bring him in,” Clint said. “You know we need more muscle on this team, and -”

“And we know you’ve been checking Barnes’ out,” Natasha said, and her voice was dry and her eyes were narrowed, 'cos she could always read Clint like a picture book. “This isn’t exactly an altruistic suggestion, is it Clint?”

“It’s not about that,” he said, and snorted at Steve’s confused look. “C'mon, Rogers, you can’t have missed the fact that your best friend is a beautiful man, but - ” he scratched at a knot in the wooden table, dug his fingernail in. “More than that, he’s decent. Right down to the core. I think if we explained things to him -”

“You’re right.”

Tony made a protesting noise, and Steve held up his hand.

“No, Tony, he’s right. Bucky would never let them get away with what they’ve been doing. If we just -”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Natasha leaned in, spoke low into his ear. “Your heart is even more of an idiot than you are.”

“My heart has nothing to do with anything,” Clint scoffed, but for a talented damn thief he sure as hell couldn’t tell a lie.


	44. Chapter 44

Bucky winced at the bright light, taking a second to get his bearings when the blindfold was removed. He pulled automatically against the cuffs holding him to the chair, and there was a low noise of protest.

“Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“*Stevie*?”

“Okay, Stevie,” another voice said, “that’s adorable.”

The second guy who’d spoken was a short Italian-looking guy with the kind of facial topiary that cost more than a decent suit. The kinda guy who had a name like Fabio. He was leaning up against the chair Steve was sitting in, tapping at a tablet and wearing the sort of smile that always made Bucky want to punch something.

“Steve, what the hell,” he said flatly. “What kinda trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

“Well, when you consider the regular insinuations about my middle name,” Fabio said, “I suppose you could say he regularly gets *into* -”

“Tony!” Steve yelped, flushing that particularly deep shade of red that’d always made his mom worry about his heart.

“Yeah,” said Tony, with a filthy grin. “That.”

“Forgive Tony.” A woman’s voice, this time. She came forward out of the shadows, followed by a tall blond guy who walked like an apology, his hand rubbing restlessly at the back of his neck. Bucky squinted at him for a moment, wondering why he looked so familiar, before his attention was caught by the beautiful redhead again. “His parents couldn’t afford to buy him manners.”

“Now that,” Tony said, “is patently untrue. My parents were rich enough that manners didn’t matter.” There was something ugly in this particular twist to his smile.

“Someone gonna tell me why the hell I’m here?” Bucky asked, scowling at the tall blond man, as the one who looked the most sheepish about having someone tied to a goddamned chair.

“Sorry about the handcuffs,” he said, and the voice, paired with the width of the shoulders that his hunching did little to hide -

“You’re the Hawk,” he said. The Hawk - who was exactly as goddamned pretty as his mouth had promised, which was something that Bucky really wished he didn’t know - sent him a conspiratorial sort of grin.

“Bucky,” Steve said, and Bucky jerked his head around to look at his supposed best friend.

“Oh,” he said, “you and me are gonna have *words*.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, open and wide-eyed, like he thought that’d get him outta trouble. It’d never worked with his ma, and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna work with Bucky. “I’m sorry, Bucky, but you’re working for assholes.”

Bucky groaned and slumped forward, aiming to let his head hit the table but landing, instead, on a callused palm that had got itself in the way.

“Not this again, Steve,” he said, with a hint of a growl, “you can’t just have me kidnapped whenever you don’t like the damned choices I make!” He rolled his head a little, kinda intrigued by the soft intake of breath when his hair trailed against the soft skin of someone’s inner wrist.


	45. Chapter 45

“It’s not like I wasn’t gonna do it anyway, sooner or later.”

Clint’s voice is low, the way people get in too-large rooms, the way people get when everyone else is asleep. Not everyone, of course; him and Natalia had been all curled up together on the couch there, and Bucky can just about see the movement as she reaches up to comb through his chaotic hair.

“That’s not the point,” she says, and her voice is a careful disguise under which the anger can barely be heard at all. “You should be able to choose.”

“And I am,” Clint answers her, sounding sheepish, sounding sad. “I’m choosing to do what I can to get that recording back, ‘cos it’s better than choosing the humiliation of having people listen to it; it was bad enough when I thought I was only telling you.”

Bucky eases a little further back into the shadows of the kitchen, wishes there were an easy way to ease past them, wishes it were possible to sneak past the pair of goddamn superspies on the couch. Clint’s been a little skittish around him, and this - overhearing his secrets - there’s no way this can make it anything but worse. He might have to speak to Natalia, though, once Clint has gone to bed. He might have to find whoever or whatever has put that note in Clint’s voice and very thoroughly set it on fire.

“Still -”

“Look at it as a good thing,” Clint says, and he wants agreement here, Bucky can tell. “They get the world exclusive they’re after, and little queer kids all over the country get their first confirmed not straight Avenger. Maybe I’ll move up the rankings, huh? America’s Second Least Favourite Avenger.”

“Clint.”

“I can have a float in the Pride parade next year, right? Tony can bankroll the acres of purple tulle. Shit, Tasha, if I'da had five minutes to myself to think, these last couple years, I’d’ve come out myself a hell of a lot sooner.”

Natalia sighed and shifted herself a little more upright, poking and prodding until she had them in a position she was comfortable with. It was most likely with Clint sprawled out, his head in her lap - it was when he was at his most boneless. It was when Bucky always had to leave the room, hands flexing against nothing.

“If you want to come out we can arrange that,” she said softly. “As soon as we have castrated this man and retrieved the recording -”

“It’s fine,” Clint said, “I promise, Tasha, I’m fine with it. I’m mostly worried about Bucky.”

He shifted, startled. Natalia’s eyes flicked to the movement, but she didn’t otherwise react. He didn’t for a moment allow himself to believe that he was safe.

“I mean,” Clint continued, oblivious, “finding out your teammate is kind of in love with you - can you imagine the media pressure? I don’t want people bellowing shit in his face about it. He doesn’t deserve that.”

Bucky’s heart was doing something uncomfortable in his chest. His stomach was hollow. It wasn’t easy to translate those sensations into words.

“And what about what you deserve?” Natalia asked, subdued.

“Let’s not go there,” Clint said, “'cos I’ve sure as hell got better than whatever it is.”


	46. Chapter 46

Has Beans was a little off the beaten track, down an alley and round a corner, and it served the fancy frothy shit, sure, but it also served a decent cup of joe for under a dollar. The inside was bare brick and mismatched cushions, an ongoing war over how the syrup bottles would be arranged, a perpetually precarious stack of takeout lids. It was just about the epitome of a neighbourhood coffee shop, not a hint of white and green to be seen, no one from more than a couple blocks away… and Bucky, who’d taken two trains and a ferry to get here, today.

He had a usual seat, though, and a usual order. He saw the usual folks walking past outside. And the usual flutter of idiot butterflies as the bell rang over the door, Clint stomping snow off his sneakers and unwinding his scarf as he came inside.

Clint opened the shop on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays he worked the lates. Bucky figured it looked a little less suspicious if he arrived before Clint did, was firmly settled and at least halfway through a coffee and a book before he even showed up to start his shift.

Natalia used the word ‘obsessed’ way too lightly, in Bucky’s opinion.

He tried to keep his eyes on the page, but Clint was grinning over at him from behind the counter, cheeks all pink from the cold, and right now Bucky couldn’t quite bring to mind the main character’s name.

“Hey,” Clint called, and then poured a large black coffee and brought it over, setting it in front of Bucky and snagging his emptied mug. “Hey, hero,” he said, and Bucky made a face up at him like that didn’t settle in right next to his heart.

“You keep giving me free coffee every time I fight a bad guy you’re gonna put yourself outta business,” Bucky said, and Clint snorted.

“Not sure if brag or subtle jab at the popularity of my coffee shop,” Clint said, half-closing his eyes. Then he grinned, going from kinda idiot-lookin’ to something spectacular in the space of a lost breath. “Nah, thanks, though. I like that park, woulda been a shame to -”

Bucky had no idea what tipped him off. Some misshapen reflection from the lines of bottles behind the counter, a misplaced flash of light, too goddamned long spent living on high alert, but he had dived across the table and knocked Clint to the floor before he’d even quite processed the need.

The plate glass window shattered, exploded inwards, and the other barista behind the counter screamed and ducked down. A familiar looking green-caped robot was framed by shards of glass, and Bucky swore and fumbled for his gun.

“Aimee, bag!” Clint snapped out, and a black nylon sports bag span out from behind the counter as Bucky realised the goddamn thing wasn’t loaded, and reached for the jacket still slung over the back of his chair.

Before he could grab it, though, Clint was standing up.

“What the hell’re you -”

It took him a second to process. Wasn’t everyday you saw a guy with a medieval weapon, putting bow to string and looking absurdly out of place and yet somehow just exactly right. Even in the Has Beans shirt.

Bucky’s mouth dropped open as Clint drew and fired, another bow on the string before the first had even taken down its target - which it did, with no trouble at all. He shifted his aim, fired, nocked, fired again, over and over, distant explosions coming from robots that Bucky hadn’t even seen. Clint moved to the window, unfamiliar grace, and craned to look out both sides.

“That’s it for now, I guess,” he said, coming further into the shop, and almost tripped over the jacket that Bucky’d been fumbling through, catching himself awkwardly and knocking over Bucky’s coffee.

 _Holy shit, I think I love you,_  Bucky thought, appalled.


	47. Chapter 47

“Don’t freak out.”

Bucky blinked his eyes open, wincing immediately at the stabbing sunlight that had muscled its way past the incompetently closed curtains. If it was anyone but Clint straddling him first thing in the morning - particularly in the presence of the kind of hangover teetotallers are born from - there’d be murder done. Unfortunately Bucky seemed to have a precisely Clint-shaped exception to his every damn rule, which made acting as his personal security a real pain in the ass.

A better person woulda quit months ago. A better person would’ve recognised the dangers inherent in Clint’s issues with personal space - in that he had none, when it came to Bucky - would’ve maintained professional distance, sure as hell wouldn’t’ve fallen so hard and so goddamned fast.

He figured as long as Clint didn’t know it couldn’t do either of them any harm.

That was what he told himself.

“You’re gonna need to get off me,” he said.

Clint tightened his thighs around Bucky’s chest, clamping his arms to his sides.

“I get off you, you’re gonna kill me,” he said, reasonably, and Bucky stared up at him for a moment, contemplating, and then bent and lifted and rolled and *pinned*, on all fours over Clint who had his wrists crossed above his head.

“Oh shit.” Clint’s voice was a little breathless, and his eyes were practically black as he looked up at Bucky, and if this wasn’t the seventh time already this *week* that he’d looked like he was practically begging for a kiss…

Bucky was kinda hoping that at some point, resisting was gonna get a little easier.

He let out a breath and rolled off Clint, reaching for the tall glass of water on the nightstand, the bottle of Advil he kept there for mornings like these.

“What’m I not freaking out about?” he asked, ignoring the sounds of shifting fabric, the frustrated string of swears.

The sudden cessation of movement, that wasn’t suspicious at all.

Bucky ran through the various hideous things that could’ve happened, after that redhead had challenged Clint, proceeded to drink him under the table, and had then shared some top shelf Russian vodka with Bucky while Clint snored on the floor. Things got a bit hazy somewhere around 1am, but they’d both made it back here, so how badly could it have gone?

“How much did you lose?” he asked, twisting to face him, and Clint rubbed the back of his neck.

“Er,” he looked awkward. “My status as US Weekly’s hottest bachelor?”

“You never had it,” Bucky said, “you were beaten out by three hockey players and at least one kids TV presenter, I remember the whin- wait.”

Clint scrabbled backwards and fell off the edge of the bed, and Bucky lifted his hand, glared at the Sharpied line that had been scribbled around the base of the prosthetic’s finger.

“I,” he said slowly, deliberately, “am gonna fuckin’ *murder* you.”

“Divorces are seriously easy these days!” Clint yelped, crab-crawling backwards towards the door. “We don’t haveta make it ‘til death do us part!”


	48. Chapter 48

The dame was as pretty a piece as Clint had ever seen, her dress white like the lace the wind chases off the sea. She looked the way saints do, pious and beautiful and sad, and he hoped if he felt the way she looked on *his* wedding day, the bride’d have the good sense to run away to Reno.

Every eye in the place was fixed to her slow procession up the aisle, the only difference from a funeral the colour of her dress. Every eye but Clint’s; it’d be good if that was because he was so dedicated to the performance of his profession, if he was busy checkin’ out alibis and interpreting clues. Instead his cow eyes were reserved for the man at the altar, for the way the lines of his suit complemented so exactly the miserable goddamn lines on his face.

Bucky looked better with his sleeves rolled up, not precise and cuff-linked and constrained. Bucky looked better when he was leaning off-center, chewing a toothpick, laughing or drawling or ear-bustingly mad. Bucky looked better when he was fixin’ to punch someone; he maybe looked best when he was fixin’ to punch Clint, half a smile still struggling to break its way through.

The church was huge and ostentatious and filled with flowers and murmurs and the holy hush that restrains even the possibility of violence. Clint smiled at a couple people like they knew him, shook a couple hands, ducked into a pew behind a flower arrangement and bent his head like he was the type of guy who prayed.

The proper way to do this’d be to wait for that moment when the priest asked for protests. That’d be the way this was done if it was a movie. But Clint ain’t exactly got the moviestar looks, and none of the guns in this place are gonna be firing blanks.

See, the crowd, by their suits, could afford to buy and sell Clint six ways to Sunday. By their guns, they could fit him for a wooden box far quicker than that.

The two sides of the church’s aisle are separated by four feet, and by four generations of grudges, mysterious disappearances, untimely deaths. And this was the life Bucky was born into, dragged up in, chewed up and spat out to somehow land in Clint’s office, sore and surly and stupidly, painfully beautiful, all out of place against a backdrop of the best Clint could do.

The two biggest crime families in the city were dearly beloved, the FBIs most wanted were gathered here today, and Clint could let this happen, make his city a little safer due to the lack of drive-bys late at night, due to the lack of the battling that’s had too high a body count for as long as anyone can remember.

Or he could stake it all on a pair of pretty eyes, on a breathless mistake of a kiss.

“Hey, I object,” Clint said, standing up in the bit about matrimony, too damned stupid to wait for his cue.


	49. Chapter 49

“- need a volunteer from the crowd.”

The blond man’s voice echoed from the high ceilings in the third best ballroom, which they’d insisted on as the backdrop for their entertainment. They’d managed to make it look like somewhere entirely new, worked with draped fabric that would pass for silk and with strange, diffuse lighting until his home was made strange and almost a threat.

It’d been so long since James had felt anything at all that the faint fizz of anticipation laced through with fear had the hairs on his arm standing up on their ends.

Although that might be the effect of the blond man’s smile, wide and teasing and aimed most often at James. It was arrogant. It was deeply inappropriate. It was making him want to smile back.

“Your majesty,” the man said - the great Hawkeye said, with a bow that was as full of flourishes as it was insincere. “Will you indulge us?”

“Bucky,” Steven said, low and into his ear. His sword was at his side as always, and his shield - by far the greater weapon - was held tight in his hand. James held out a hand to stay him, looked up with a hint of the boyish smiles they’d once shared.

“Come on, Steve,” he said, just as low. “Let me have a little fun.”

He descended the steps from the dais, leaving the ridiculous ermine-trimmed cloak draped over the throne. The courtiers - with their eyes like those of the animal heads that decorated the walls - murmured gently in disapproval.

“Your majesty,” Jasper said, easing in with his mild voice, his too-easily followed suggestions, “I really don’t think -” James shrugged him away, stepping up onto the low platform that served as a stage, the wood rougher than anything within these walls.

Up closer the man’s smile was enough to shift the ground beneath James’ feet, and he blinked quickly and looked away, unsettled at so deep and consuming a reaction.

His training for his position had been - thorough. Difficult. Steven had barely recognised him on his return. To have his carefully built walls of ice so easily and casually brushed aside -

“Now,” the blond man said, low and intimate and to him, yet somehow still heard by all, “whatever are we to do with you?” And his fingertips brushed against James’, as though he were to catch them and kiss them, as though he were a man with a maid to woo. It would have been infuriating from anyone else; it would have been enough to offer insult, were it not for the way James’ heart rose to the touch, every fiber of his being plucked where it had been tightly strung.

The poets described it, of course, but poorly; no words had ever captured how perfectly, awfully, unbearably certain it was possible to feel.

“Oh,” the man said, his gorgeous grin dropping from his face, the colour fleeing to join it. “Oh, this complicates matters.”

“Clint,” his assistant said, her red-lipped smile fixed, “*now*!”

“Sorry,” Clint told him, and threw something to the floor that exploded in light and sound enough to almost shake the foundations down around them; not enough, though, to distract from the blow to his head.


	50. Chapter 50

Clint sits on one of the plastic chairs that lines the side of the hall. They don’t have the bleachers rolled out - far too easy to sneak underneath into the warm, dark, private space - and he feels too conspicuous.

See, Clint has a habit of sneaking into school reunions. It’s generally a decent spread, occasionally you can get a free drink or two, and you can make up whatever the hell backstory you want for people who are willing to believe they knew you, once. He arrives late, takes a badge that looks lonely on the table, smiles and laughs and dances with people, occasionally goes home with someone and gets a little fun and every now and then a decent breakfast. Always a shower. Once or twice a couple packages of food from cupboards where no one will notice the lack.

He’s not *proud*. But pride doesn’t keep him fed.

He has no idea what the hell destructive impulse made him show up here, though. This is probably one of the dumbest things he’s ever done, and the competition for that is fierce. He shouldn’t be sitting here in a patched up blazer and his least battered pair of jeans, wearing his own name on his chest.

He’d arrived in senior year. When he was still young enough that people would kinda give a shit if he’d been living on the streets. He’d actually kinda liked these foster parents, June and Dennis, and he’d decided to make a go of it, actually try; it’d been satisfying to find out that he wasn’t quite so dumb as Barney’d always convinced him he was.

Clint had actually made friends in this school, which was a sweet kinda pain that he didn’t remember having before. He’d started out surly but he couldn’t maintain it in the face of Tony’s teasing, and Steve’s hilarious ranting, and the way Sam made eye contact during Steve’s diatribes and raised an eyebrow at him, invited him to share the joke. And then there’d been Bucky.

In the end, Bucky’s the reason he snuck in early, used the showers just off the gym and dressed up the nicest he can manage. On the stupid impossible off-chance that Bucky’s decided to attend a school that he couldn’t wait to get out of, back then. He used to kick his feet up on the bleachers, shove his hand through too-long hair and tell Clint all about the places he was gonna see when he went off to join the army, once he’d graduated. He’d tell Clint about all the good he was gonna do, and he’d smile that beautiful smile he had, and Clint hadn’t even once dared tell him that he loved him, in a helpless and honest and all-consuming way that he’d never felt since.

It was close to midnight, though, and Clint is still alone, and he’d kinda forgotten that dreams aren’t for him. It’s too late to persuade anyone else to take him home, the last hopefuls shuffling back and forth in each other’s arms, so he grabs his bag from where he’d stashed it in his old locker and makes his way out into the cool of the night.

There’s a noise when the double doors have swung shut behind him, out of place with the distant strains of ‘80s power ballads. A shuffle in the darkness, and Clint squints into the shadows, fists clenched, 'cos he’s learned.

The man who emerges is - he’s hunched up, and his hair is long, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in the best part of a year. He’s got one sleeve pinned up short, and he looks like someone the army maybe chewed up and spat out, and he still looks like the best thing that Clint has ever, ever seen.

“Steve said you showed up,” he says, his voice low and a little hoarse. “I don’t know if you -”

“Hey Bucky,” Clint interrupts, his heart in his throat, making his voice come out thick. And shit, the smile is as good as it ever was, slow and wide and the most beautiful thing Clint will ever see.

“You remember,” he says, and Clint laughs, helpless.

“You were my one good thing, Buck. How the hell was I gonna forget?”


	51. Chapter 51

“Hey.”

Bucky jerked out of the half-sleeping daze that public transport always inflicted on him, blinking himself upright from where he’d been leaning against a pole. It took him a second to identify who was talking to him - for some reason he hadn’t expected the guy to be sitting down. The train was packed with commuters, but the pair of crutches by the guy’s side explained how he’d managed to snag the seat.

“Hey,” the guy said, when Bucky finally stopped looking at the crutches like an asshole, actually managed eye contact. He had a smile like sunshine, bright and uncomplicated. “I really like your ink.”

“That’s not the arm people usually look at,” Bucky said, and felt like kind of an asshole about it until the guy laughed.

“Yeah,” he said, “know the feeling. People are so busy with the crutches that they don’t make eye contact, and that really fucks me over ‘cos I can’t read their lips.” He had bright purple hearing aids behind his ears, now that Bucky was looking, way clunkier than the one Steve wore.

“Well I’d sign, but this thing ain’t exactly useful for talking with your hands.” He shrugged the shoulder with the prosthetic attached, hating the stiff movement of it at his side.

“No worries,” the guy told him, “it’s not exactly a problem having to look at your mouth.” His eyes darted up then to meet Bucky’s, wide and blue, made more so somehow by the deep embarrassed flush that lit his cheeks. “Shit, I mean -”

Bucky couldn’t help laughing, wrapping his arm across his stomach, the bright tattoos there a contrast to the plain gray he wore.

“Wow,” he said eventually, “that was smooth.”

“You want smooth?” the guy said, grabbing his crutches, “wait’ll you see this.” He planted his crutches on the floor of the train and swung himself to his feet, somehow making the motion seem acrobatic, not an inch of awkward about it. He lifted his feet off the floor and walked himself forward on his crutches until the sudden sway of the train made him overbalance a little, rock forward into Bucky. “Hey,” he said, while he was leaning against Bucky’s chest, “you come here often?” and he dropped a wink that had Bucky laughing again, only the second time in as many weeks.

“You’re a menace,” he said, adjusting him a little more upright again. Whatever had happened to the guy’s legs it wasn’t something that was gonna get fixed up any time soon - they moved wrong, like they were held together with metal pins, and it was clear he couldn’t do a lot with them. Bucky knew something of the feeling of that.

“Well,” the guy said, “trouble would be my middle name, but my parents were assholes so it’s Francis. Clinton Francis Barton, to be precise.” He held out a hand and Bucky shook it automatically, noting the calluses and wondering if the guy played guitar.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he said. “Bucky to my friends and guys who feel me up on the train.”

“If you think that was me feeling you up, it’s clearly been way too long since you got laid.”

“Well, y'know,” Bucky said, hardly believing the words that were coming out of his mouth, “if you wanna help me out with that -”


	52. Chapter 52

Tony blinked himself out of an inventing daze sometime around mid-afternoon, which wouldn’t be a problem if he could still work out what day it is. He put down whatever he was tinkering with - he’d kinda taken a left turn around homing grappling hook, and by now he wasn’t entirely sure what he had - and stood up, swaying on his feet.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, when FRIDAY made an admonishing noise. “Kitchen. I’m going.”

He shuffled up the stairs, tripped a couple times on his trailing sweatpants, looked down and realised they were Steve’s which probably explained that. He was looking down and fumbling with the string when he heard voices, and he figured he should probably put his pants to rights before inflicting himself on them.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

It was Bucky’s voice, Sergeant Boyhood Buddy Barnes; there was no mistaking the low husk of it, the way he always sounded like he’d spent his nights screaming. If it was anyone else, if there was any other reason for it, Tony would have found it irresistibly hot.

“I know.” Clint, which was interesting. Tony hadn’t really thought the two were idle-kitchen-chatter types. Mostly they seemed to be trying to kill each other in benign enough ways that Steve wrote it off as hijinks and didn’t intervene. (Apparently Tony was sleeping with a guy who still thought hijinks was an acceptable word to use. Apparently Tony had had some kind of brain malfunction and found it adorable.)

“I - ” Bucky’s tone got lower - still audible, but Tony had to work for it. “I didn’t expect it to feel that good.”

The string of Tony’s sweatpants, which he had been attempting with exhaustion-clumsy fingers to tie into a knot, slipped entirely out of his hand. *What?*

“Well, when you’ve been doing things one way for long enough -”

“You seem to manage both okay.”

“Yeah.” Clint’s voice was ridiculously smug. “But I’ve always been pretty flexible.”

“Maybe you could teach me more? I mean, the stretching was kind of a bitch.”

It was Clint’s turn to have a little husk in his voice as he answered. “You just gotta go slow. Maybe we could switch again, and I’ll show you how it’s supposed to be?”

“Yeah. Fuck, yeah, I’d like that. Maybe I’ll get good enough with the bow that I can take you on.”

“Ha! In your dreams,” Clint said, ‘cos he had self esteem issues leaking out of his every pore unless he was talking about archery, when he knew just *exactly* how damned good he was.

Because they were. Talking about archery. Holy shit, Tony had thought -

He sorted out his goddamn pants, took the gentle mockery about wearing Steve’s clothes in his stride, and made himself a sandwich and snagged a handful of chips. And then, at FRIDAY’s insistent prompting, went back for an apple.

He was still laughing to himself, though, when he carried his loot back to Steve’s room, settled himself on the bed to watch Steve draw.

“I need to sleep more,” he said, and Steve made a faintly exasperated noise, 'cos he’d been saying the same thing for months. “I swear I just heard Barton and Barnes talking about archery and I thought they were -” he snorted. “I thought Bucky’d let Clint pop his anal cherry.”

Steve laughed, which was something Tony always loved to watch.

“No chance,” he said. “No, no way. Bucky was banging like a screen door back in the '30s, Clint sure as hell wasn’t the first.”


	53. Chapter 53

Bucky let himself out onto the roof through the access door, crunching across the gravel there without any sort of attempt at secrecy. It was the kind of day where the cold settled into the bones of you, aches along the length of them; it was pain-cold and the sharpest shade of gray. His hair whipped across his face and he was grateful for the leather jacket he wore, and he was grateful for the hooded sweater and the blanket he’d bundled up in his arms, because the idiot curled up by the low parapet had a hospital gown flapping against his bare legs.

He didn’t give Clint time or space to protest, ‘cos he was practically blue. Just got straight to bundling him up, careful of his ribs and the cast around his left arm, swaddling him up until his hair was wild with static and he was twice the size he oughta be in Bucky’s arms. Of course he got him situated there; once he was incapacitated and unable to do accidental damage to himself or others, Bucky insinuated himself behind him and pulled him back against his chest, his feet planted flat and his knees crooked up to provide a little more of a cage for him, make him feel a little more surrounded and safe.

The difference was immediate and welcome, but Bucky still didn’t like the fine tremble of Clint against his chest. He wrapped his arms around him, careful to keep the pressure light, and traced his lips along Clint’s neck, across the cold line of his jaw. Clint made a soft noise and leaned into it, and Bucky’s lips curled into a smile against frigid skin.

“Why’ve you got to do this, huh?” he asked, low and warm and gentle and the polar opposite of everything that was the sound of the wind.

Clint shuddered a little and pressed backwards into him.

“Every time,” Bucky said, rubbing his hands up and down Clint’s arms over sweater, over blankets, still feeling the ridge of the cast, the solid reminder that he hadn’t been fast enough to help. “Every damn time you gotta tumble yourself outta the hospital bed, and I’ve gotta track you down and make you look after yourself.”

“Well you make such a pretty nurse,” Clint croaked, and Bucky nipped at his throat, a punishment. Clint sighed, tipped his head back onto Bucky’s shoulder, stared up at the miserable sky. “I do it,” he said, “'cos someday pretty soon I’m not gonna be able to crawl out of that bed, and it scares the shit out of me.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Bucky answered, quick as breathing, quick as the heartbeat that suddenly thumped rabbit-fast in his chest.

“Nothing about this is on you,” Clint said, suddenly stern, but only so long as he was talking about Bucky, 'cos he could only ever be fierce for someone else. His voice softened back into something that Bucky thought was like snow, soft and gentle and cold until suddenly it was heavy enough to pull down the roof on you. “I’m getting old,” he said. “Everything hurts more, everything bends less, every injury is a little closer to pulling me out of this.” He let out a breath that Bucky could see. “And this is everything. I don’t know what I’m gonna have when everything is gone.”

“Me,” Bucky said, monosyllabic 'cos of the fist around his throat, 'cos he could barely swallow or breathe. He pressed a kiss to Clint’s frozen cheek, scared stupid and fierce. “You’ll have me, Jesus Clint, you -”

His usual approach was useless here. He couldn’t squeeze tighter, rock him a little, show him with his strength and his solidity that he’d always stick around; maybe that wasn’t what Clint needed, maybe he’d always needed Bucky to make himself weak with words.

“I love it,” he said, helpless. “I love that you’re getting old. I love that every new line on you that I get to learn is another sign of how long this’s been going on, and of how I get to keep you now.” Clint snorted, and Bucky pressed his mouth to the lines right by the corner of his eye, the ones he figured were halfway his from how many times he’d made Clint grin. “I don’t know how to tell you I love you in ways you’re gonna believe,” he said, making a warm spot for Clint on a frozen rooftop, knowing him well enough to seek him out every time.

 

 


	54. Chapter 54

Grand Central Station reminds Clint of the circus. How could it not? It’s cavernous and beautiful and awe-inspiring on the surface, bright colours and frenetic activity; the moment you go deeper it’s a little dirty, a little crime-ridden, a little precarious in the way of all things that could so easily kill you with one wrong step. It’s a nostalgia trip; it always makes him want to call his brother. Whether he loves it or hates it changes by the hour.

He walks in wearing his Avengers uniform and feels like there’s a spotlight, like he’s in the centre of the ring. He can’t help but grin at it, wink and shoot fingerguns at a couple of kids that recognise him, bask a little in the attention when someone’s mouth drops open at the sight of him, someone else drops their bag. If he didn’t have a signed and official threat from the Mayor of New York he’d be pulling out his bow, right now. It’s a hell of a space for it.

Once he’s satisfied his little crowd of mostly tourist fans, since New Yorkers are too practiced at being cool, he starts scanning the crowds, frown slowly growing. It’s a while before he finally catches a glimpse of silver, dark hair and black leather.

Bucky’s leaning agains a pillar, one foot propped up on it, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, and Clint shamelessly takes a moment to scan over the length of him. He barely gets the chance to really indulge, ‘cos the sight of Bucky with his eyes closed - in the presence of other people, no less - is so rare as to be almost unprecedented. His hair has fallen away from his face and the line of his jaw is scruffy with stubble, and Clint has always liked the way that feels against his lips. The tingling sting of it, when he kisses a guy’s throat, when he runs his mouth against the grain. It’s probably a line of thought best not followed - not in public, not with this man right here - so he walks closer and clears his throat, noticing as he does the way Bucky’s jaw is shifting like he’s grinding his teeth.

Bucky’s eyes flick open, and his pupils are so wide his eyes are almost black. He fumbles for something under his jacket - and he does, he fumbles it, unfamiliarly clumsy and taut.

“Are you okay?”

Bucky huffs out a breath through his nose, a little like he’s exasperated, a little like he has adrenaline to spare. The stillness he’d evidently persuaded himself into hadn’t lasted, and now he’s rocking his weight a little, eyes darting around the cavernous space.

“Hey,” Clint says, “hey, Bucky, you okay?”

He doesn’t, he *doesn’t* expect Bucky to grab him by the bottom of his body armor, drag him around the pillar until they find somewhere just a little away from the public eye, and then tug him in close and press his face against Clint’s neck. It. This doesn’t fit in with the thing they’ve had going on. It’s not in keeping with the frantic and emphatically private fucks, the carefully carried out charade of polite indifference anywhere they can be seen.

“Hey,” he says, soft, and reaches up to bury his hand in Bucky’s hair, hold him in close and safe. “What -”

“I really,” Bucky says, quite and emphatic, “*really* don’t like fuckin’ trains.”


	55. Chapter 55

“Hey,” Clint says, his hands held up, and his voice is barely shaking, which he’s actually pretty proud of ‘cos this time he’s definitely going to die. “Hey, you mind if I just -” he gestures a little towards where Bucky is standing, blank-faced and cold. No one actually speaks up to stop him, so he shuffles over, his feet still clumsy and dumb from where his ankles had been tied so tight. It’s the chill, too, maybe. Clint has fought people in hotels with plush carpets, and he’d always kinda hoped that’d be the kind of place he’d go out. The huge warehouse, though, with the distant drips and the rough concrete, it’s probably more thematically appropriate, in the end.

Clint steps into a puddle that’s deeper than he’d thought and curses, shaking water off his purple sneaker, hopping a little across the floor. There’s not a flicker of an expression on Bucky’s face, but one or two of the goons are laughing. That’s probably about right, too.

“Hey Bucky,” he says, fishing for something meaningful to end his life on. Some famous last words for the kind of book that gets kept in the john. He stretches out one hand and touches the line of Bucky’s jaw, just a second’s contact, but not a muscle moves in the man’s face. Aaw, fuck it. “You’re really hot,” Clint says, his deathbed words, “and I fucking wish I’d told you sooner.” He grins and darts in, presses a kiss to Bucky’s unresponsive lips. “And this isn’t your fault.”

“Soldat,” a man snaps out behind Clint, and Bucky - or the Soldier, 'cos that’s clearly who he is now, because Clint’s life is a cosmic joke - grinds out something in Russian that Clint doesn’t know. It’s probably not good, though, 'cos when he speaks again Clint can hear that the man behind him is smiling.

“Kill the Avenger,” he says.

*

“Please don’t,” Clint says, but he doesn’t bother shutting the door - what wood is gonna stand up against the Winter Soldier? He limps over and lets himself drop onto his bed, face down in the hopes he can suffocate before anyone talks.

“Clint -”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Apparently the muffling capacity of his comforter is better than previously thought, 'cos Bucky somehow gets from that an invitation to come in and perch himself, awkward, on the end of Clint’s bed. “Please fuck off,” Clint says, but it’s a genuine plea, a little pathetic, and Bucky’s hand on his ankle is the very epitome of pity.

And then he’s being yanked half off the bed, his feet left to drop ungainly to the floor, his hip propped on Bucky’s knee. He makes a stupid, humiliated noise, and Bucky - who’d let go of his ankle after the initial hard yank - runs a proprietary hand from the back of his knee up over his ass.

Clint spreads his legs a little, involuntary. He’s not proud of it.

“Did you mean it?” Bucky says.


	56. Chapter 56

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: IMPLIED CHARACTER DEATH**

The girl’s face appears in the frame, grinning for all she’s worth. She is standing in front of a red-brick building that, from its staining, is both elderly and somewhere highly populated; after a moment, a yellow caption comes up labelling it as being in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York.

“Welcome to another episode of America’s Hauntings! This week we’re somewhere a little different; you might’ve noticed the lack of gravestones, boarded up windows, and bats!”

“And we’re all very grateful.” This voice comes from behind the camera, dry and unamused.

The girl snorts, making a face at the camera, flicking her long dark hair behind her shoulder. “You love it.”

“I love *you*,” the other girl says, and there is visible melting on the screen. A moment’s shuffling, a glimpse of the abundant curly hair of the camera person, a shot of bright blue sky, and the camera fades to black. When the picture comes back the host is back in front of the camera and reapplying her lip gloss.

“As I was *saying*,” she continues, unruffled, “this isn’t our usual sort of place, but the owner is a friend of mine and he’s been losing out on sleep for a while now. Unexplained noises, footsteps, someone whispering in his ear, and sudden drops in temperature are just a few of the things he’s been experiencing. Unfortunately he’s a sceptic -”

“He’s - in this *one area* -” the cameraperson emphasises, “reacting in a perfectly sensible way.”

“- and he chooses to blame elderly plumbing, drafty windows and loud neighbours for all his issues. So we’ve come to do a little investigating and set him straight!”

“Does Clint know we’re coming?” the cameraperson asks, as the host reaches into her pocket and pulls out a key. “Kate -”

“Oh, he won’t mind,” she says, with a grin at the camera, and she bounds up the stairs and out of sight. There’s a longsuffering sigh and the camera fades to black.

-

The next footage cuts in mid-argument, and there’s muffled sniggering from behind the camera.

“ - you’d be naked?”

“Well maybe if I’d ever *given you a key* I’d be more prepared for visitors, but as it is -”

“Clint.”

The man is blond, rumpled, dressed casually in sweatpants and a Denny’s shirt. He looks directly at the camera and lifts his hand in a half-hearted wave.

“Hey America.”

“Can you just - indulge her?”

Clint rolls his eyes and rubs a hand over his face, with the sandpapery sound of too-long-neglected stubble.

“Fine,” he says. “You do what you’ve gotta do. Whatever.”

-

The next shot is green-tinted, clearly shot in darkness, steady enough it can only be a camera on a tripod. Captions show the temperature, but the drop is evident in the suddenly visible breaths coming from the man draped on the couch, fast asleep. He hunches a little deeper under the blanket, and a frown is clear on his sleeping face. After a moment, a soft whimper from his sleeping form; after another, he tosses his head, a convulsive movement like there’s something he’s trying to dislodge.

“Shhh.”

It’s a soft sound, soothing, and it shouldn’t result in Clint waking; he sits bolt upright, blinking around blindly in the darkness, his eyes eerily lit by the green.

“Bucky?” he says, quiet, hopeless, and then he swings his legs around and sets his bare feet on the cold floor, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.

“Aw, fuck,” he says.

 

 


	57. Chapter 57

“Hey asshole!”

Bucky was used to Clint being at the range first, usually bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning from ear to ear. To be stood up - to be told by a damned machine that Mr Barton wasn’t coming to play today - smarted more than it oughta.

He banged on the door again, and it slid open soundlessly in a way he hadn’t quite gotten used to yet. Even less when there wasn’t anyone on the other side.

Clint’s rooms in the tower were actually tidier than he’d expected, but that was more down to lack of contents than lack of commitment to squalor. The pile of dishes by the sink in the little kitchenette was small but everything was dirty: two plates, two spoons, two glasses, one mug and one coffee pot. The couch had a pile of clean laundry on one end and a pile of dirty laundry on the other, with just about room for one ass between them.

It made Bucky hope the guy had an apartment somewhere else. Somewhere with photos and tchotchkes and a widescreen TV. Mostly, these were the rooms of a lonely man, and Bucky hated to think about Clint that way.

He kicked aside a stray pair of socks that were trying to make a break for it, and - figuring the layout would likely mirror Stevie’s - opened the door that probably belonged to the bedroom.

“Hey,” he said softly, and the echo he got was small and soft and sad, with an apology tacked on to the end. Clint was all burritoed up, the dedicated sort, where the level of tangle kinda hinted that you’d been there all day.

“You sick?” He said, ready to roll up his sleeves.

“Nah,” Clint said, with a self-deprecating effort at a dismissive snort, “just shit. At everything.”

Bucky considered telling him that that was sure as hell not true; that shooting with Clint was the high point of pretty much all of his days. That Clint had stolen more of his smiles than even Stevie had managed, and that he was workin’ on Bucky’s dreams too.

But these were the rooms of a lonely man, and the walls were bare and white and ready to echo back all of his thoughts until they sounded like other people’s voices, until they sounded like all the awful things he assumed people thought weren’t just coming from inside his head.

So Bucky kicked off his boots, instead, and clambered onto the bed. Curled himself, all ungainly, until he could press his back against Clint’s chest and settle in there, making a home.


	58. Chapter 58

Bucky kisses Clint under the bleachers, and around the back of the equipment shed, and one winter afternoon when the sky is as grey as the buildings and the line between earth and cloud is fuzzy and ill-defined, Bucky kissed Clint against the wall of the school after the bell has rung and everyone - even the stragglers - had gone inside. 

Clint feels like he has a secret. One of the good kind, the kind that make you smile as soon as you think of it, the kind that you have to keep cupped in clasped hands so no one can see the light. 

Clint feels like he is a secret. That feeling’s not so good. 

Bucky kisses Clint in the showers after they’re done running laps, after everyone else got tired and left. Bucky cups his jaw and looks at him like… like he’s not nothing, and kisses him until the water runs cold.

Bucky kisses Clint in the corridor when everyone else is in class. In the stairwell after detention. In the narrow alleyway behind the science classrooms, tugged in flailing and ungainly and close, so close. 

And Clint never tells him - I wish you could kiss me in public. 

(And Bucky - who has watched him since he started at the school, with dark eyes and from behind dark hair; who has watched him smile and laugh with people who know how to talk; who has wished so desperately for the words he used to be able to find - Bucky never tells him - I wish you could kiss me first.)


	59. Chapter 59

_Hey_ , the text message says, just as the wheels of Clint’s plane hit the tarmac,  _welcome home_. 

It’s the last in a long string of messages, far longer than Clint would ever have expected. He’d sent a couple messages to practically everyone in his contacts, a picture of a carefully generic sunset, a selfie in an airport lounge, maintaining a fiction for those who thought he was on a holiday, keeping secrets from those who knew he wasn’t. He got a couple of polite responses, way more people who didn’t bother to respond. And then this. 

Only reason he’d had Bucky’s number in the first place was because they kept overlapping at the range; for weeks and months their only exchanges had basically consisted of:

_aids?_

_No aids, I’m shooting_

_ok_

Once there’d been a tentative -  _pizza?_ \- but Clint hadn’t gotten around to responding to it for the better part of a week ‘cos he’d had to rescue his phone from a rooftop in New Jersey. By the time he’d charged it up again, checked that it all still worked, he’d figured the invitation had expired. 

So he hadn’t expected the commentary on the canon inconsistencies of Dog Cops. Hadn’t expected the sneaky pictures of the hilarious expressions Tony made when Steve was doing his innocent act. Had clung, in the dark, in the darkest moments, to the sleepy selfies and midnight ramblings and the way his phone lit everything up. 

Clint unbuckles his lap belt before the light’s switched off; he’s on his feet and snatching his bag out of the overhead locker while everyone’s still working out which way is up. 

Of course he takes a second to thank the flight attendants, ‘cos they had to put up with a  _lot_ , but then he’s hustling through to the terminal so he can get a car, can get  _home_ , can - 

Clint almost stumbles over himself. Comes to a stop, and then hurtles forward from a standing start, slamming into Bucky harder than would be advisable with anyone who wasn’t a super soldier, anyone who couldn’t take every damn thing that he has to give. 

“Fuck I missed you,” Clint says, face mashed all awkwardly against Bucky’s ear, long dark hair sticking to his lips, “ _fuck_.” 

“I was hopin’ you’d get a clue,” Bucky says, and Clint kisses him, pulls back so he can get Bucky’s hair out of his damned way, ducks in to kiss him again. 

“Sorry,” he says, “sorry it took me so - you know I see better from a distance -” 

But maybe he’s gotta work on those close-ups, ‘cos this is a hell of a view. 

 

 


	60. Chapter 60

Every time - leather against his wrist and his wrist, not tight but *certain* - it takes him backwards. It makes him newer.

Every time kneeling is a choice it makes him free.

Every time Clint - with his unsteady steadiness, his uncertain conviction, his belated-built foundation to everything Bucky is - every time Clint smiles down at him and curls a hand around his face, he feels protective and proprietary and perfectly, possessively owned.

Clint stands strong and square, scratches fingernails that catch painful with caring carelessness through his hair. He towers over Bucky and curls over Bucky and shields him from a world that would hurt him. And promises to hurt him. And makes him vulnerable to invisible and painless hurts as he had never, ever been.

“Thank you,” Bucky sobs, hitching and awful and the most beautiful thing he has ever said, “don’t let me go.”

“I’m your prisoner,” Clint says.


	61. Chapter 61

The snow had been falling on New York for hours, the sky fizzing white. Clint had curled up by the floor to ceiling windows and was half asleep with watching it, the chill of the glass counteracting some of the warmth the eggnog had put in his cheeks.

Christmas had never been a holiday he’d had all that much time for, growing up. The circus mostly went further South in the winter, following the sun, but a couple years they’d closed up shop and Clint had lied about his age to a foreman, spending the winter hauling boxes around a warehouse and never managing to get warm. He’d been tired and sore by the end of the day, but he’d got money counted out directly into his hand, which made it a little tougher for Barney to spend it out from under him.

The warehouse hadn’t been much for Christmas, either, but there’d been a cheap plastic tree in the corner of the foreman’s office, and the radio in the corner burbled cheerfully about bells and snowmen and roasted chestnuts. Somehow it all seemed to make a little more sense in the cold. On a Thursday, somewhere in December’s teens, the foreman had tugged a Santa hat down over Clint’s messy hair and told him just looking at him was making him cold, which was the clumsy kinda caring that Clint had always known. He’d grinned all day, and even Barney’s sharp-edged teasing hadn’t been enough to scrape away his smile.

Clint had grown into Christmas, adopted whatever bits of other people’s happiness he could make sense out of, worn the same stupid Santa hat every damned year.

Sometimes he’d had friends around him over Christmas, sometimes he’d been alone. Sometimes he’d eaten pizza, sometimes Chinese, sometimes turkey, sometimes nothing. Sometimes he’d been so drunk he couldn’t see more than a blur of lights, sometimes the tree’d been far more lopsided than him. And he’d loved all the components in different ways, and he’d learned to love all the pieces of Christmas he could weave into his days, but more than anything he wanted the sorts of traditions where everyone knew the steps.

Clint watched the snow fall, and he was so caught up in the way the light was slowly fading out of the day, the way the snow still held onto a little of it, that he didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him until a toe nudged at his back. Clint tipped his head back, raising a hand to hold onto the Santa hat, and grinned up at Bucky, who was wearing the same ugly sweater that Steve had delightedly presented him with last year.

“Hey,” he said, and Bucky bent down enough to press a kiss to his lips, chilly and fresh and - like always - the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“Guess what time it is?” Bucky asked, and Clint took a second before he remembered last year, and what that particular flavor of smile had -

He shrieked and flailed and shot to his feet when Bucky shoved a frozen metal handful of snow down his back.

“You son of a-” he yelled, slamming out of the glass door after Bucky and out onto the helipad, stooping to gather handfuls of snow - just exactly like they’d done the year before, just exactly like he hoped for for a bundle of Christmases to come.


	62. Chapter 62

Bucky was used to candlelit rooms, shadowed faces, quiet desperation. He was used to pentagrams drawn in chalk or salt or - more recently - Sharpie; he’d never come across one before that was made from arrows, lain neatly end to end. The light was bright, but with that strange brittle quality of midnight fluorescence, and it laid heavy on pale skin.

Pale his summoner most certainly was; pallid and sickly and too long sleepless, his skin drawn a little too tightly against his bones. Bucky had enough of a moment to appreciate the blue of his widening eyes, then he was ducking back automatically to avoid a punch that never could have connected, not unless Bucky let it.

“Sorry,” he said, “my body’s otherwise occupied.”

“What?”

“Can’t answer that, pal,” he said, tugging his features into a rueful expression. “Not until we’ve made some kind of deal for the answers.”

“What’re the usual terms?”

He looked like he’d pay them. Whatever they were, he looked like he’d pay them, and Bucky had the usual rush of pity for the idiots who called on him when they’d been let down by even their last resorts.

“Depends on what you’re looking for,” Bucky said. “You’ve got to understand, I ain’t exactly the head honcho around here. I can trade a little, something you value for something you want, and if we wander outside my remit I can broker a deal between you and - ” Bucky waved a hand, ‘cos he hadn’t yet managed to find anything that linguistically encompassed the powers with which he dealt.

“So you’re not gunning for my soul?”

Bucky grinned, and there was the barest echo on the man’s face, like a flickering bulb illuminating an empty room that ought to be full of life.

“I’m not equipped for that level of commerce, my friend,” he said. “I’m peddling penny candies, not serving up gourmet meals.”

“I want to know about Phil,” the man said, and Bucky sucked in a breath between his teeth.

“All right. Then I’ll trade you three answers for three kisses, and if you want anything else when we’re done I’ll hand you down the ladder to someone who’ll ask for way more.”

“Why?”

“Because we expect payment for services rendered,” Bucky said, “choose your wording more carefully next time, 'cos now you’ve only got two.” He reached out and brushed cold fingers along the man’s jaw, tilting his head uncompromisingly and pressing his cold lips to the man’s warm mouth.

It wasn’t much, didn’t last long, but the heat was pure bliss.

“What did you mean your body’s otherwise occupied?”

“That’s what you’re gonna ask?” Bucky blinked at him, and every inch of the guy was stubborn, wide-planted feet to rumpled pale hair. “I’m not dead,” he said, after a moment, 'cos who was it gonna harm? “My soul’s being made use of while my body’s in cold storage. Apparently somebody’s gotta pay for its crimes.”

This kiss was slower and sweeter, the man tilting himself into it, and Bucky ignored the 'sorry’ that was whispered against his lips. He wove his cold fingers through messy hair and made the man shiver against him.

“Last question,” he murmured, when he pulled away. “Don’t waste it.”

“How do I bring Phil Coulson back to life?”

There were a million winding ways he could answer that question without answering, in the time-honoured tradition of genies and demons and smiling Brooklyn boys. Instead he took his kisses while the taking was good, sliding his cool tongue into the man’s burning mouth, wishing like hell he could taste him smiling.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, brushing snowflake kisses from his mouth to his ear, “but I’m not the only one who ain’t dead.”


	63. Chapter 63

Bucky was born without a sense of smell.

It was something that had been theorised about before; it was incredibly rare for soulmates to be more than a couple years apart, and what two year old is gonna be articulate about much of anything? So there was a brief flurry of interest in Bucky until he got sick of the whole thing and told everyone that he liked the smell of apples, and cotton candy, and the hand cream his mom used - ‘cos he was already afraid of the way the guy at the grocery store made him feel.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t - maybe he’d been made wrong from the beginning, and being queer meant he didn’t get to have a soulmate like everyone else, and maybe -

Steve’d crawled off the couch cushions they’d set on the floor and slapped a cold hand over his mouth.

“There’ll be someone for you,” he said, only an outline in the darkness, but Bucky could hear the conviction in his voice. “There’s no way you’re gonna be alone, even if it’s not your soulmate. And I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

Steve had always been the best friend a guy could have. Didn’t even mention the wet patches Bucky left on his shoulder.

It made him think about things a little different, though. Made him smile a little lopsided at Kevin Taggart, who complained of dreaming of the smell of phantom spices that no one’d ever cooked with around their way. Made him come up with a convincing argument or two that had him pressed against a cold wall behind some garbage cans, Kevin panting against his mouth.

His sense of smell might not’ve developed, but his sense of taste was just fine.

*

Maybe the lack even worked to his advantage, judging by the tales the Commandos told. Maybe it was easier to be brave when you couldn’t smell the hot copper around you. Easier to be optimistic when you couldn’t smell the rot setting in.

Maybe.

*

The Winter Soldier didn’t know that he couldn’t smell.

The Winter Soldier didn’t notice when he could.

*

“Man,” Bucky said, sauntering into the kitchen and scratching his belly, stretching the sleep off him, “something smells amazing,” and he was a fan of anything that could put that kinda smile on Steve’s face.

He was learning, and growing, but smell was an area that Steve couldn’t help him with, one of a bare few that he didn’t have advice on the preferences that Bucky used to have. In some ways that made things better; it was nice not to feel like he was being himself wrong, that the crinkle of his nose when he smelled roses was just as much him as the foods he’d loved back when he was a kid.

Coffee was his favourite smell, bitter richness soaking up the morning fog. He liked rich warm tomato sauces, melting cheese; he zoned out happily on the smell of tiger balm outside a shop in Chinatown. Steve encouraged him to keep track of the smells he liked, said that maybe it’d narrow down the person he was meant to be with; Bucky was dubious about that, but there was no denying the happiness that radiated off Stevie any time Stark wandered into the room.

Or at least, Bucky was dubious about the whole thing until he met Clint.


	64. Chapter 64

Clint rubbed his hands together. He was working too hard on unfreezing the bristles of the Quidditch team’s brooms to bother with his hands as well, and his last pair of fleece-lined gloves (Clint maintained they’d beat out any with the charms woven in) had disappeared from the staff room.

Tasha, who coached Slytherin, was wrapped up warmly in a charmed cloak in the stands. She’d persuaded her Beaters to unfreeze the brooms for her - or possibly it was some form of punishment? - but Clint had worked with the Hufflepuffs way too long to let them near their own. He knew for a fact that they’d insist on the work being divided fairly, with every team member defrosting their own broom; little Imelda Fothergill, one of their chasers, had managed to explode a *glass of water* in the dining hall last week. In the long run, this was easier.

“You’re a sap.”

Clint waited to turn around until he’d successfully bitten down on the giddy grin. He mostly managed to play it cool in the staffroom, in the dining hall, in places he knew they would inevitably meet. Unexpected meetings, all bets were off, and he couldn’t help the reaction to that husky voice that shivered all the way down his spine.

“Where’s your Hufflepride?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder, meeting Bucky’s scowl with a grin.

“Ask me again the first time you win.”

Clint mimed shock, misery, wiping away an imaginary tear with the hand that wasn’t holding his wand.

“Cruel!”

“Accurate.”

“Yeah, okay.” Clint shrugged. He’d not managed to internalise the fierce competitiveness of Slytherin and Gryffindor, and was more interested in watching the matches so he could pick out and praise the things his bumblebees had done well. “We kinda suck but the kids have fun, and that’s what counts, right?”

“Sap,” Bucky snorted, again, and Clint - in a moment of madness, ‘cos Bucky didn’t exactly have the most even of tempers - scooped together a handful of snow and launched it back over his shoulder, perfect aim smacking it directly into Bucky’s face.

“Aaw,” he said, losing focus on his warming spell and spinning around, slipping on a patch of ice and falling onto his ass. “Reflexes, no!”

He didn’t expect the grin. He didn’t have his internal defences ready for the complete havoc that grin would wreak on his insides, and he stared dumbly for long enough for Bucky to yank out his wand and conjure a snowcloud above his damned head.

Clint tried to duck, tried to dodge it, tried to outrun it, almost tripping over his feet 'cos he couldn’t help stealing glances at Bucky, who was doubled over laughing in the snow. Eventually he drew to a halt, letting the snow pile up like enthusiastic dandruff, and tried to look pitiful in Bucky’s direction, even when the corners of his mouth wouldn’t stop curling up into a grin.

“Here,” Bucky said, and tossed Clint’s purple-striped gloves at him. “I rescued them from Peeves for you.”

And that was almost worth the snow cloud that followed him around for the rest of the damned day.


	65. Chapter 65

“Tasha, Talia,” Clint says, brushing past her, his hands tangled into his hair, “oh fuck, help me, I fucked up, I fucked everything up.” 

She grabs his hand and drags him into the bathroom, the only place in her little apartment where the lights reveal more than they hide. She sits him on the closed lid of the toilet and tips his head back, checks his pupils, brushes her hands restlessly over the skin she can’t see. 

“What,” she asks, “Clint, what is it?” 

Her boy blinks up at her with his idiot-blue eyes - because he is an idiot, and he is hers, in the fiercely possessive way of children who haven’t yet learned how to share. He has been hers since the first time she had to pull him out of an alleyway and brush careful concealer against the bruised corners of his mouth - since the first licence plate she took note of, the first john she followed home. And, because he is hers, there is nothing he cannot ask, and nothing she would not do. And because he is hers, there are things she will never ask of him, for fear that he - without hesitating - would do them for her. 

“ _Clint_ ,” she snaps, and he startles and shakes his head, batting her hands away gently. 

“I’m not hurt,” he says, and he can only capture her hands in one of his because she allows it, because she trusts. “Tasha, I’m okay, I just -” 

She loves him like a child, with the whole of her heart, and for weeks now she has been fiercely jealous of every part of his. It is not love the way she has known love, and he is not hers the way that a lover would be; neither of them has ever wanted that from each other and she intellectually knows that there is room for -  _talldarkhandsome, assholefunnykind_ \- someone else, for him, but - 

“Tasha, fuck, I think I love him,” makes her feel like a child again, idiot-blue. 


	66. Chapter 66

“Bad day,” Clint said, and Bucky opened his arms and let Clint walk right into them, making himself at home against the warmth of Bucky’s body, fitting just exactly right there.

It happened like that sometimes. That people just fit. It’d been a while since Bucky’d had any real grounds for comparison, a while since Bucky’d had a sample size of more than Steve, but he felt this knowledge right down in the bones of him. In all the long lengths of his body, all the places Clint snugged up just right.

“It’s not weird,” Clint’d said, the first time and at least one forever ago. “It’s not weird unless we make it weird.” Bucky had considered making it weird for a good thirty seconds, but he’d been tired and dust-covered and relaxing into it had been easier than any conversation could’ve been. They’d stood there for at least five minutes, Bucky rocking their weight a little back and forth without thinking about it, easing into it like the best sort of sleep.

Clint felt good in his arms. Clint did good at his back and sounded good in his ear and felt good in his arms, and it all added up over time into something Bucky thought maybe he could be ready for, if he tried.

Something good.

“Bad day?” he said, but Clint shook his head, snuggled a little deeper so his nose was buried against Bucky’s shoulder, his hair brushing against his cheek.

They’d just carried it on, after that. If it ain’t broke…

“It’s not weird unless we make it weird,” Bucky said now, and ran his hand up Clint’s back to rest against the nape of his neck, shielding the fragile skin there and ruffling his fingers through Clint’s short hair. “I’m good for this as long as you are, sweetheart.”

“Fair warning,” and Clint’s voice was a murmur, deep and content, “we’re gonna be here a while.”

Bucky had honestly thought that was the moment, the one time Clint had fallen asleep in his arms. The couch had kinda been a necessary addition to the hug, what with Clint’s busted ankle and all, and even when the rest of the team had trailed in and insisted on an impromptu movie night it hadn’t seemed worth moving; none of them had grounds to judge. Somehow the film selection had involved brightly coloured puppets, which Bucky woulda thought Clint would’ve been all for, but instead he’d grown slowly more lax, fitting perfectly against Bucky even as he surrendered to sleep. The movie’d been over by the time he’d awoken, and Bucky’d been entirely too contented to move; there’d been a moment with dark eyes in the dim light, with licked lips, with a breathless awareness that the slightest movement from either one of them -

They weren’t quite there, yet. They were getting there slowly. Taking their time.

The smile saturated Bucky’s voice, soft and slow and happy and heavy with it.

“Well,” he said, “you just let me know.”


	67. Chapter 67

“…think we should be going after this guy?”

“Okay, number one, Captain Sexist, there’s absolutely no reason to assume this person is a guy. What, men have to be more uncomfortable with affection?”

“No, I -”

“Number two,” Tony said, ticking the point off on his fingers and easily overriding Steve, “you’re absolutely right I don’t think we should be going after this guy. He’s not hurting anyone by going after mistletoe - easily one of the creepiest Christmas traditions - and I say we let him do it.”

“I’m with Tony.” Unexpectedly, it was Bruce who chimed in. Usually the quietest in their team meetings, he had claimed the seat closest to the door and was keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the candy cane he was spinning between his fingers. “They haven’t broken into anyone’s houses, they haven’t stolen anything of value, they’re just removing a potentially embarrassing hazard from public areas.” He looked up and met Steve’s eyes, smiling faintly. “I’m all for it.”

Bucky leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and wishing the furniture was a little more conducive to catching a quick nap. Of all the pointless arguments to be having -

“What’s your take, Natasha?”

“Mistletoe should be banned until any and all forms of retaliation are permitted,” she said. Bucky didn’t turn to look at her, partly because it would’ve distracted him from counting the ceiling tiles, which was a hell of a lot more interesting than this conversation, and partly because wherever there was Natalia, there was always Clint.

Avoiding was too strong a word for what this was. It was more a form of self defense - pre-emptive action taken in advance of forming inappropriate psychosexual reactions to reindeer-themed headgear. *No one* should look that goddamn sexy wearing a pair of fake antlers.

Presumably Steve turned to look at Clint, then, ‘cos his lazily amused voice weighed in next.

“No offence, Cap,” he said, “but consent is a thing.”

Steve let out a sigh.

“Fine,” he said, “no chasing the mistletoe bandit. Which means -”

Tony was - unsurprisingly - the one to catch on first, and his groan nearly drowned out Stevie’s voice.

“ - that we are free to attend the Mayor’s Christmas Ball, and I bet the mistletoe looks a hell of a lot more important to you all now.”

“It was always important,” Clint muttered, almost under his breath.

So Bucky wasn’t so surprised, later that evening, when he broke into Clint’s rooms to find them absolutely full to bursting with sprigs of mistletoe.

“…did you break into my living room?” Clint asked, wandering in to join him with a carafe of coffee in hand and a candy cane hanging out of his mouth.

“Little hypocritical to protest it,” Bucky said, gesturing around at the evidence of Clint’s crimes.

“Consent should never be begrudging, okay?” Clint’s scowl was undermined by the cheery red and white dangling from the edge of it.

“Enthusiastic,” Bucky said, edging forward.

“Right,” Clint said, yanking the candy cane out and gesturing with it emphatically. “All the way.”

“Wanna make use of the misteltoe with me?” he asked, and leaned forward for peppermint kisses, figuring the way Clint nearly nodded his head off his neck counted for enthusiasm enough.


	68. Chapter 68

It was barely even a panic attack. Just, y’know, a little trouble breathing, a slightly increased heart rate, barely any dizziness somehow located in the base of his spine. 

“Nah, I’m good,” he said, when Bucky paused by him, and it was all new enough that Bucky didn’t know not to take him at his word, and that was  _fine_. He got a beautiful little grin, just for him, and a brush of their hands before Bucky went off to find Steve. 

“It’s okay,” Clint said, trying to get the balance right between ‘loud enough for people to hear’ and ‘loud enough to drown out the head voices’, “it’s okay it’s okay _it’sokay_.” 

He rubbed his hands - shooting gloves a rough comfort - over his face and let out his breath between his teeth. Shhhhh, Clint. It’s okay. 

When he felt steadier again he went to join the others in the kitchen, exchanging grins and teasing and layering all his masks back into place. He went to the counter and found a sandwich there all ready, cheese and chips on cheap white bread, proper comfort food like big brother used to make. He smiled and picked up the plate, then snagged the sticky note that fell off the bottom of it. 

 _Hush, Clint. You can have good things._  Natasha’s writing, familiar as her barely-there grins.  _I promise you deserve to be okay._


	69. Chapter 69

Bucky doesn’t know what he was expecting. Feels like it oughta be different, somehow, but at first it’s just like every other first kiss. Warm lips, warmer breath, the involuntary curve of a smile against his mouth. Not so very different from stumbling out of a dance hall and curling himself around someone in the darkness, in the contrasting cold of the outside world; Clint’s taller than him, that’s all.

Well - maybe not all. Bucky opens his mouth just a little, an easing of tension, a softening and an admission and an invitation, all at once, and the quiet but undeniably male noise is - well it sure is something, all right. He’s used to being yielded to, not yielding, and it’s so new that it’s not easy right away to know if it’s good.

Some of the differences are easy enough. Clint’s taller, and Bucky’s not used to feeling the slight strain in his neck. Clint’s lips are chapped and a little rough, not waxy with lipstick, and his hands are big but careful where they rest on Bucky’s hips. Clint’s stubble prickles at the skin of his face, undeniable, and Bucky presses a little forward against him, feeling for more reminders, more proof.

Yeah.

It’s good.

Clint pulls barely away and Bucky follows him, a noise he couldn’t possibly admit to tugging itself free from his mouth. It pulls a soft laugh out of Clint in response, warm and intimate and pressed into the skin just in front of Bucky’s ear, and Clint lets his hands slide up so they’re wrapped around Bucky’s back instead, pulling him in for something that shouldn’t feel so innocent as a hug.

“Bucky,” he says, all soft and playful and so happy he’s a little giddy with it, “aaw, Bucky Barnes, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Not from this far away, I ain’t,” Bucky grumbles, like they could get any more wound up in each other if they tried. Like Clint isn’t even now pressing clumsy kisses where he can hear them far too loud, moving his head with them he means them so hard. Bucky turns his face into it and takes Clint’s mouth again, opens to him without thinking.

It’s not comparable, that’s the hell of it. It’s a whole new world out here, and Bucky’s not sure he could find his way back even if he wanted to. He’s wanted enough dames over his life, he’s kissed a bundle of ‘em and danced with more, and it was enough to patch over the other things he wanted, 'cos he’s never quite wanted anything the way he wanted this. It’s a first kiss in a hell of a lot of ways, and it feels like the beginning of someone entirely new.

“Hey,” Clint says, soft. “Hey,” and he drags his mouth along the line of Bucky’s eyebrow, and he pulls away to grin. “Hey, get yourself out of your head.”

“That’s about as likely as getting you outta my heart,” Bucky says, clumsy enough to fall, and turns out the second kiss is even better than the first.


	70. Chapter 70

Bucky slept hard, aggressively, throwing himself into it and ignoring - with the aid of earplugs - the fireworks and cheering and noise and joy. It’s cute, the way people believe that the transition from one arbitrary time unit to another is going to cause any sort of change, that it’s a moment with any sort of significance at all; it’s odd and unbalancing how he’s somehow absorbed the belief. This year he’s decided to sleep through it so he can start out the new year right. 

(And if the uncertainty of communication over the last few days means he’s not sure how long he’s gotta sleep for - if the vagaries of transportation means he’s gonna have to sleep for a week - he’s willing to make that sacrifice for this.)

There’s light creeping around the edges of the curtains when a weight on the mattress rocks him a little, has him rolling over to awkwardly rest up against Clint’s hunched back. He’s unlacing his shoes, and he’s rumpled and worn, and he’s got a bruise colouring the line of his cheekbone when he turns to smile. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and ignores the laces to shove his boots off with his toes, just so he can rub his knuckles across Bucky’s cheek. “I tried so hard for midnight, but -” 

“I went to sleep at 11:30,” Bucky tells him, “so I could -” 

Bucky turns his face into Clint’s opening hand, kisses the heel of it, the rough skin of his palm. Clint cradles him closer and slides his hand into Bucky’s hair when their lips meet, the first thing Bucky’s gonna do in the new year,  the thing he wants desperately to repeat a thousand times, the thing he’ll do all year. Every year. For the rest of his damned life. 


	71. Chapter 71

Bucky swung by Has Beans on his way up to Clint’s apartment, because Clint was never vertical by choice any time before ten. Aimee was behind the counter, working at the section of the bar that was kept clean for her sketchpad, and Bucky watched the contentment on her face for a moment before clearing his throat.

“Yeah,” she said, and flapped a casual hand, “I’m getting to it, keep your -” a decisive final movement with the pencil before she looked up and grinned, “weirdly well-cut hair on.”

“Morning. Can -”

“I’m insulted if you thinking we don’t know your order,” she said, and the shop filled with the rich smell of coffee as she set about it, moving with a relaxed sort of efficiency that there was never time for in somewhere like a Starbucks. “How long’re you here for, this time?”

Bucky looked down at the duffle that was resting against his ankle, thought about all the things that’d slowly migrated and that he’d never wanted to retrieve. The apartment was taking on a slightly different character now, still entirely Clint’s but maybe a little bit theirs just around the edges, and every time Bucky put the key - *his* key - in the door and pushed it open he felt like the edges had migrated a little ways in.

“A while, I hope,” he said, and shrugged his shoulder like that’d do anything to remove the virtual blanket of warm fuzziness that resulted from even thinking about it. “As long as Clint’ll have me.”

“Well shit,” Aimee said succinctly, giving him a flat look that was somehow undercut by the smile that managed to sneak in every inch of her. “I’m gonna be serving you coffee when you’re eighty.”

Bucky snorted, let it out into a genuine laugh.

“Sorry doll,” he said, “too late for that one.”

She placed two mugs on the counter, ‘cos disposable cups were for people who didn’t own the building, and he slung his bag across his back and took them, thanking her with a grin that put a little pink in her cheeks to match her hair. He pushed back out through the glass door and walked around the corner to the building’s entrance, bracing the door open for Mrs Kovalchuk, who told him about her girlfriend’s grandchildren and patted his cheek.

Clint had been busy while Bucky’d been away. The tiles in the corner had been replaced, at last, and it looked like the elevator was finally working; Bucky walked up the stairs, though, noting the replaced door numbers, the freshly painted walls.

Behind the door of Clint’s apartment there was a happy whine, and when Bucky pushed the door open he was greeted ecstatically by a wiggling bundle of golden fur. Bucky put the coffees down on the table by the door and crouched to greet Lucky properly, running his fingers across his back and relishing the warmth as Lucky pushed up against him.

Once Lucky had greeted him to his satisfaction and gone off to investigate his water bowl, Bucky pulled off his boots and grabbed the mugs again, padding up the staircase to the partial second floor. Clint was already stirring when he got to the doorway, roused by the smell of Aimee’s excellent coffee, and the particular smile he wore as he edged into waking was one of Bucky’s favourite sights in the entire freaking world.

“Hey,” he said, once Clint’s eyes were open enough that he’d be able to read his lips. “I’m home.”


	72. Chapter 72

Clint scrolls back through the three almost identical shots, then lines up another, staring at Bucky’s scowling face on the small screen. Bucky stirs his coffee slowly and then lays down the teaspoon with a gentle clink.

“Quit it,” he says, and then he almost flinches at the gentle whirr of the shutter. Clint bites his lip.

“That’s what I’m here for, though, right? Pepper knows I always get the shot.” The next set of shots captures the long line of Bucky’s throat as he tilts his head back, and sure he’s frustrated but he’s also fucking beautiful, and Clint could make bank on these pictures. He quickly flicks back through them,  _delete, delete, delete_.

“Sit your ass down,” Bucky says, and nods over at the waitress who brings them another cup, filling it with steaming black coffee that smells a hell of a lot better than anything Clint can usually afford. Turns out taking pictures of endangered birds isn’t the lucrative career you’d think.

“Gonna give me some artistic direction?” Clint asks.

“You can shove your artistic direction right up your ass,” Bucky says, and keeps talking before any of the dozens of one-liners Clint’s masochistic brain produces can make their way to his lips. “You’re avoiding me.”

Clint picks up his coffee, burns his mouth on a sip.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I’m right here.” He goes to aim his camera again, ‘cos the light is doing beautiful things to the edges of Bucky’s frown, but a hand covers the lens and Bucky pushes it down.

“You’re using that fucking thing to avoid me. What I don’t get is  _why_.”

’ _Cos I fell in love with you when you were still awkward in front of a camera,_ Clint thinks,  _and I always knew you’d outpace me, that I’d wind up loving the back of your head._

He shrugs. It’s easier.

Bucky lets out a breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

Once Clint’s finished his coffee Bucky orders another, and he leans into the light, and smiles just right, and turns his head precisely to the angle Clint wants it. Clint gets a dozen or more photos that are just perfect for the advert Tony wants, and they don’t have anything of Bucky in them at all.

“I guess I remembered you wrong,” he says with a shrug, when they’re done. And Clint opens his mouth and trips over his tongue.

“You thought about me?”

“Sometimes felt like I did nothing else.” He ducks his chin and looks up through his eyelashes at Clint, and he’s a hell of an actor - there are awards for it, Clint’s watched every speech - but this feels like maybe it’s real.

This feels like a studio Clint could barely afford, and a whole lot of beautiful wrapped up in a cheap suit, and he’s always known he’d left his heart there but he’d kinda hoped he’d get used to living without it.

Shoulda known you didn’t get over something like this.

“I’m sorry,” Clint says, out of nowhere, when Bucky’s just about to pull on his coat. Bucky watches with dark eyes as he picks up the camera, and they widen just a little when Clint shoves it away into its case. “I’m sorry. I’m here. Don’t go.”


	73. Chapter 73

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Mob Boss Bucky ficlet

Bucky Barnes controls the narrative.

Bucky Barnes picks the interviews, and the interviewers, and the suits he’s gonna wear.

Bucky Barnes talks about the small businesses he’s saved, and the gratitude of his community, and conveniently forgets to mention the legs he broke getting there.

He’s a bad boy come good. He’s taken down a huge chunk of the Irish mob, and he’s in protective custody for now but it’s not long, Clint figures, before he’s gonna be whisked away to somewhere on the West Coast, somewhere he can quit paying for a salon tan, somewhere the sun is gonna wear new lines into his face that Clint’s never gonna see.

Clint swears long and loud and creatively, and then he apologises to the dental nurse and tucks the magazine under his jacket on his way out the door.

See, Clint may be an Avenger but he’s not supposed to know about this safe house; Tony says he’s sick of him looking so damn sad. And Clint’d like to say this is the first time he’s stood outside it. He’d fucking love it if he was able to say that, only he’s been out here every night for a week and he’s already worked out five ways in.

He taps gently on the window. The smile on Bucky’s face when he sees him breaks Clint’s heart.

“Shit, it’s good to see you, baby,” Bucky says, and he goes to cup Clint’s jaw the way Clint cannot hope to resist so he backs off a couple paces, folds his arms across his chest. Bucky’s face settles into an expression that’s unsurprised and resigned, and he settles himself on the edge of the pristinely made bed.

He’s got suit pants on, perfectly creased, and a white shirt that clings to every inch of him. He’s wearing those dumbass tiny sport socks, and his bare ankles feel like a personal attack.

“You can’t keep doing this to me,” Clint says, finally, and his voice comes out a lot rougher than he’d like.

Bucky’s jaw ticks. It’s an effort, when he smiles.

“I’m fairly sure I’m not doing anything to you,” he says. “In about a week I’m gonna be out of your life for good.”

A week. Jesus.

Clint fishes inside his jacket and tosses the magazine onto the bed, and it falls open with a slick thump. If this was a movie it’d open wide on Bucky’s stupid beautiful face; it’s an ad for engagement rings, and Clint wants to goddamn die.

Bucky stares down at it for a second, his face the sort of motionless that only comes with hard work. Then he reaches out and picks it up, carefully leafs through to the interview - triple page spread - and sets it back on the bed where it’d fallen, crafting the narrative back to where it ought to be. He looks up at Clint, enquiring, and Clint wishes he hadn’t spent so long learning how to read the looks in his eyes.

“You said you fell in love,” Clint says, and he’s never had the practice Bucky’s had, so he points his face at the ceiling instead. “You told them - you fed them some bullshit about love  _changing_ you, and -”

“I’m a criminal,” Bucky says, cutting across him like a blade, almost too sharp to feel. “I ain’t a liar.”


	74. Chapter 74

“Hey,” Clint says, smiling widely into the camera, “you’re wearing the hat I got you.”

“Maybe I’m wearing the hat *I* got me,” Bucky says, scowling, which is the way practically all of their conversations make him look, which is a good half of the reason he loves Clint so damned much. “I’m the fuckin’ astronaut in this relationship, you’re some kinda - space dilettante.”

Clint laughs, delighted, and he’s got the kind of laugh that bubbles out of his mouth and ends up somehow in your own.

“Oh fuck, that’s going on my business cards. ‘The Amazing Hawkeye, World’s Best Marksman and Space Dilettante’.”

“World’s Biggest Ass, more like.”

“Aaw, but you don’t want that advertised, baby, that’s all for you.”

Bucky moved his hand, an aborted movement that he used to adjust his hat a little, pull it further down over his eyes.

“Wish it was a little closer, maybe,” he said, looking out over the sweeping expanse of fields out back of Clint’s farm, and even when you’d had the whole damn universe mapped out in front of you, they still made you feel kinda small.

The back porch had a swing seat that he’d helped Clint hang up, and it took them three tries to get it quite straight. There was a huge reel of copper wire next to it that served as a coffee table, and Bucky used to put the laptop there only Clint’d said it made him seasick, watching him sway.

“Hey,” Clint said, and he lifted his hand to touch the camera, a moment of the whorls of his fingertips before everything went dark, and Bucky laughed again, stupid and a little jagged.

When it was him in space there were a thousand things to look at, and think about, and do. Sure, there was down time, and if he spent most of that time talking into the camera on his laptop that was no one’s business but his own. But there wasn’t a space for Clint out there, Clint wasn’t missing even if Bucky was missing *him*. Out here, on Clint’s farm, every space was a space without Clint, and every moment ought to hold his laughter and his warmth, and Bucky kept cooking too much and turning to talk and almost rolling out of bed reaching for something that oughta be there.

“Next time, take me with you,” he says, and there’s a flash of bright light while the camera reacts to Clint pulling away his hand. Takes a moment to focus in on Clint’s dropped open mouth, the blue of his wide eyes.

“I thought you -” Clint’s stuttering a little, not managing to get it first try, “you said you - there was that whole press conference, making room for the younger guys, I thought you were done with the whole -” he gestures, encompasses the wide window behind him, the endless black, the pinpricks of impossible distance.

“Turns out,” Bucky says, “I can handle just about anything except this damned distance from you.”


	75. Chapter 75

Barnes is sitting on the steps to his trailer when Clint pulls up, and the big shiny truck he’s driving - in comparison to the battered off-white walls - makes Clint feel like kind of an asshole. But he stopped apologising for who he’s made of himself when Barney stopped coming around, and he’s not gonna start again now.

He jumps down, and his clothes at least fit the place; battered brown work boots, faded jeans, a shirt he’s ripped the sleeves off, ‘cos it’s hot as hell in this part of the world. Barnes is wearing a dark shirt, tight jeans, and a hat that takes years off him, like they’ve somehow travelled back to the time they first met. It makes Clint swallow hard and take a second to get himself together before he walks over and tries not to loom.

“I don’t do interviews,” Barnes says, and Clint has a stupid and futile moment of disappointment, 'cos he’s more than aware that he was just one of a multitude - plus it’s been years, and he maybe hasn’t aged as well as others.

“I’m not a journalist,” he says, and Barnes - Bucky - gives him a disbelieving look. “No, seriously, I just - I used to - ” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck, scratching at the pinking skin there. “You were in a band I used to like, and -”

“No one’d pay much for an autograph on ebay these days.” Bucky leans back on his elbow, kicking his legs out in front of him and cross them at the ankle. “Mostly they call 'em fake, 'cos I sign with a different hand, now.” His jaw ticks a little. “Mostly people think I’m dead.” He watches as Clint fumbles in his back pocket, pulling out a white card and holding it out. “What’s that?”

“My boss - Tony Stark’s moved into prosthetics, now. He’s working on - they’re a lot more sensitive than they used to be, and he’s looking to work with musicians, see what he can do to -”

Clint shrugs, useless with words in a way he hasn’t been since he was still too young to drink, since a local boy in a local band smiled at him from the stage and made him feel like he was some kinda special.

“You wanna make money outta me?” Bucky asks. “'cos I gotta tell you, I’m gonna be rusty, even if this fuckin’ thing works.”

“No!” Clint flushes and looks down. “You lied,” he says after a second. “Every now and again there’s an interview, and you always look -” he looks up, meets Bucky’s storm-grey eyes, but still manages to talk through the dryness of his mouth. “I just wanted to see you smile again, I guess.”

He puts the pristine white card down on the chipped paint of the step, and turns to go. This wasn’t what he expected. He’s not sure if he should be disappointed.

“Hey, Clint, right?” Bucky says, and he freezes in place, his heart thumping in his chest like a bass drum.

“Yeah,” he says, and looks back over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and the corner of his mouth quirks up a little, nothing like how it used to but something like a start. “Yeah, I remember you.”


	76. Chapter 76

Clint was slowly torturing him to death, and he didn’t know what the hell he’d ever done to the guy to deserve it.

He’d hoped, for a little while there. Some folks back in the day used to be a little shy about it, used to work on knowing each other a little more before they moved forward from that first instant of matching up words. Some of ‘em, their words were kinda queer, or confusing, or downright rude, and it took them a little while to get their heads on straight about their new forever.

Clint, though, he’d just - he’d moved forward, like they didn’t even matter. Bucky wouldn’t even have known he’d said them if Clint hadn’t been shirtless, hadn’t turned to the coffee pot and shown off the curling black words that Bucky’d just that second said:

_well Steve sure as hell wasn’t lying about the view._

Clint’d poured out coffee into two Stark Industries mugs, rubbing a towel over his head as he brought one over to the table where Bucky sat.

“Coffee for the handsomest hobo,” he’d said, louder than was needed, with a beautifully wide grin, and Bucky’d been too busy gaping to react to the words that’d always marched down the outside of his thigh.

And then they’d just… never brought it up again.

It’d taken Bucky a little adjustment. He had enough of his brain scraped back together to remember that he’d always smiled extra wide at pretty waitresses in diners; that he’d always drunk his coffee black and he’d always left his chin unshaved. He hadn’t expected Clint, with his grin and his hopeless clumsiness, with his sharp mind and sharper eyes. He hadn’t expected how goddamn deep he’d have fallen so impossibly quick, and now every day - every video game tournament, every movie side by side, every competition on the range - stung sharp like ice against exposed skin.

And now Clint was staring at him, his head resting against the back of the couch, and Bucky had never wanted to do anything so fiercely as he wanted to kiss this man.

“So I always bought into the soulmates thing,” Clint said, and there was that instant of high-flutterin’ hope before it came crashing down. “But now I’m kinda thinking it’s bullshit.”

“Right,” said Bucky. Frozen. Numb.

“What the hell’re you gonna know about a person from a couple of dumb words, right? What the hell does the universe know about the person I’m gonna love?”

“Okay.”

“They could be completely wrong for me.” Clint inched closer, and Bucky closed his eyes. “Maybe -” and Clint was close enough that his breath was warm on Bucky’s face. “Maybe there’s someone else that suits me better.”

Bucky flinched away, pulled back, got unsteadily to his feet.

“I got the picture,” he said, and he sounded angry, only that wasn’t how it was at all. “You don’t have to explain here, Clint, I got that you didn’t want this a long time ago.”

“I - ” Clint was all lopsided, unfinished sculpture, leaning over the space where Bucky had been. “Didn’t want what?”

“I’ve seen your words, asshole,” Bucky said. “I’ve  _said_ your words, you don’t have to let me down gen-”

“Holy shit,” Clint said, all the colour running out of his face. “You - I meant you, I kinda love  _you_ , when did you - ”

And holy shit, of course it hadn’t struck him then, the significance that Clint’d just got out of the shower, the first time they’d met. He didn’t  _hear_.

And maybe the universe’d had something with that. Maybe Bucky needed this time to relax here, to let his guard down and let someone insinuate themselves behind his walls before he put up all the barbed wire.

“I guess,” he said, and edged in closer, touched Clint’s elbow and ran his hand down to Clint’s hand, “I guess I’ve kind of always believed the universe had some kinda plan.”


	77. Chapter 77

The Avengers was something amazing, something incredible, something that was never gonna last. Superheroing was always gonna be a young man’s game, regardless whether some stayed young longer than others. Clint had actually been the second to retire, with Bruce beating him by a hair and Tony following shortly after. New rosters were put together, new villains tried to take them on, but eventually even the name was done. Eventually, even Steve’s supersoldier bones started to ache. 

They mostly kept in touch, Tony’s baseless comments about Clint living in the dark ages notwithstanding. He was out on his farm, sure, and he never got around to installing holoprojectors, but the internet was decent enough, and his ancient laptop could still send email, video call when the wind was pointed right. 

Natasha came to stay every now and again, and increasingly over the years she’d drag Sam along, enough that the pretty ring didn’t even come as a surprise. Steve’d call - mostly when he wanted something, and even if that was a charitable something it still kinda highlighted the devious motherfucker he’d always been. Thor got in touch very occasionally, and he always looked surprised at the way they’d all aged. 

Tony was a weirdly diligent correspondent, which was just about the opposite of what Clint’d expected. He’d figured once they weren’t in his home, it’d be a case of out of sight, out of mind. Tony rolled his eyes at him, once, when they were sprawled on Clint’s porch with a far too successful experiment in cider. 

“It took me long enough to collect you guys,” he’d said. “You think I want to bother finding anyone new?” It was only half true, though. Clint’d heard rumours of some kinda Avengers Academy in Queens. 

Bruce didn’t really talk to them any more. Clint didn’t really blame him. 

And then there were the postcards that dropped, every once in a while, onto his mat. Far-flung places and still the cheesiest postcards that could be found, one month Mexico, the next month Shanghai. Every single one with just four words, ‘Wish You Were Here’ scrawled casually across the back. 

Clint stuck ‘em to his fridge and tried not to wish that too. 

See, Bucky’d stuck out the Avengers a lot longer than Clint had. It made sense that the thing they’d had would’ve fizzled out too. It was all very friendly, a mutual agreement that it was gonna be a bitch to keep it up over distance. Outside of the sex, what did they even have? And Clint’d stuck with that. Even when he found himself missing movie nights, and shared breakfasts, and conversations he hadn’t even really registered at the time. Even when his phone lit up with phone calls that he never answered. What the hell did he have to offer, aside from himself? That’d never been enough for anyone else. He wanted to leave it on a good note, a happy ending, even if they never got to ride off together, ‘cos they hadn’t let the sun set. 

The phone calls stopped eventually. The postcards started up instead. 

And Clint would give just about anything for a return address. 

One Thursday, early spring, another postcard dropped onto his mat, and he picked it up. Didn’t even get a look at the picture before he registered that the four words were there, just as usual, only there was no address. This hadn’t come through the goddamn mail. 

He swallowed his heart back down and tore open the front door, to find Bucky on the other side - older, and a hell of a lot balder, and with a stupid goatee, and none of that weighed against the familiar damned smile on his face, the way he looked at Clint. 

“I see you kept all your damned hair,” Bucky said, and Clint laughed, helpless against it. 

“Yeah,” he said, “well somehow you’re still the best thing I ever saw.” 


	78. Chapter 78

Bucky smiles, tosses his hair back out of his face, and brings his hands up. 

“C’mon, man,” he says, “you gotta come harder.” 

Clint is reasonably certain, at this point, that the universe is full on fucking with him. 

His agent had been fair with him, had allowed his last two films to be a little subtler, a little bit clever, and only one shirtless scene between the two of them. He’d spent more time with his scripts than at the gym, which was all kinds of novel, and there’re rumours that he’s up for some kind of award for one of them. In exchange for that allowance, he’s now been signed up for yet another of these bland action movies that made his name; a trilogy, this time, unless it does better than the shitty script deserves. 

Clint’s got nothing against action films, he’s an action kinda guy, and the urban Robin Hood film he’d made as a kid, the one that was his big break, that’d been something he could really be proud of. Honestly it was more progressive than half the shit he makes today. Literally the only saving grace in making this film is the fact that he gets to train with Bucky Barnes, who is seriously the hottest fight choreographer in Hollywood. 

In every goddamn sense. 

Clint swallows hard and tightens his hand around the rubber knife, shifting his weight before stepping forward. Bucky sidesteps him neatly, pivots, takes out his ankles and pins him to the mat, grinning into his face. 

“That is  _not_  in the script,” Clint protests, and Bucky laughs at him. 

“You signal like that in a real fight, you get yourself killed,” he says. “I couldn’t resist.” 

“You want me on my back?” 

There’s a moment there where Clint’d  _swear_  that Bucky’s eyes drop to his mouth, just a flicker of long lashes and interest, but it’s gone in a second, Bucky vaulting to his feet. 

“C’mon, Hawkeye,” he says, and Clint gapes up at him. 

“You’ve  _seen_  that film?” 

Bucky shrugs, a little awkward for the first time today. “That film is basically why I do what I do.” 

“Wow.” Clint can’t help grinning at that, the real one he’s not allowed to wear on the red carpet because, apparently, it makes him look like a ‘dumbass sunshine puppy’, whatever the hell that means. “I mean. Thanks?” 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, rolling his shoulders, “whatever, I’m not here to stroke you off.” 

Clint chokes. “That is  _not the phrase_!” 

“It’s not?” Bucky says, and gives him a sidelong look so full of mischief and heat that it goes straight to Clint’s dick. He gets to his feet swiftly, to avoid the draping, and tries not to make a big deal of adjusting himself a little. 

“You’re trying to kill me.” 

Bucky grins, a little flash of his tongue between his teeth. 

“Maybe. Now come at me again,” he says, “and this time I want it harder and I want it faster.” 

And Clint kinda wants to die. 


	79. Chapter 79

“I’m fine,” Clint said, with a smile and that split-second of hesitation that pulled Bucky after him, following in his wake. They went into the kitchen, and Bucky silently but firmly herded Clint away from the coffee pot and over to the cabinet full of juice and hot chocolate and tea. Chamomile with spiced apple, and Bucky unearthed a pot of honey from Bruce’s cupboard and stirred in a spoonful, and Clint’s mouth tilted a little upwards when he breathed it in. 

“Thanks,” he said, and, “I’m fine,” and the hesitation was still there, so Bucky dogged his footsteps through to the elevator, too. He pushed against Clint’s back, hovered his finger for a second over the floor that held medical, knocked Clint’s hand gently away from the floor with the range. The lack of tension in Clint’s back, though - ‘cos Bucky knew how he held himself, how pain held him - had him decide on the floor they both lived on. 

The elevator hummed gently, soothing not-quite-silence, and Bucky followed Clint out of the opening doors. 

“I’m fine,” Clint said, on a softly exhaled breath, and Bucky tilted his head, and Clint opened his door and led him inside there, too. Bucky leaned back against the door as Clint wandered inside, sipped his tea, walked restlessly between the couch and the kitchenette and the bathroom and the bed, and lifted his arms to make a space when Clint came back and leaned his weight into him, solid and heavy and warm. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Sure.” Bucky pressed a kiss against his temple, reward for the lack of hesitation, the lack of a lie. 

“I’m fine, I just. Hurt, some.” 

“Sure,” Bucky said, and curled his arms in all careful, gathered Clint in all close. 


	80. Chapter 80

Clint flinches as something moved in the shadows of his apartment, reaching for the knife that he’d - yeah, used to open the Amazon package and then left by the door, because he’s awesome, because it’s been long enough since someone’d broken into his apartment that he’s forgotten to be scared. 

“I’m gonna complain to Stark Industries,” he says out loud, shifting a little so he’s closer to the kitchen, the bow that’s leaning up against the island there. “Tony assured me personally that his alarm system was more effective than the shit they’ve got at the Pentagon.” 

“Perhaps you should change your code.” 

Clint lets out a breath through a mouth that’s curving a little into a tentative grin. 

“James, hey,” he says, and heads for the light switch instead. James flinches when it comes on, shielding his eyes with his metal hand; he still has that belligerent air to him, but he’s looking  _good_. Someone’s taken some scissors to the mop on his head, or at least washed it properly so it falls a little better, and he’s neatly shaved and dressed in clothes that have been chosen for more than their ability to resist a knife. “Hey,” he says, meaning it in all sorts of different ways, “it’s good to see you.” 

James shrugs one shoulder and shifts his weight a little before heading for the couch, taking the corner he always took back when Clint was sheltering a fugitive, or helping the homeless, or - whatever the hell he thought he was doing, at the time. Paying him back, basically, for the time the guy’d saved his life. He hadn’t known back then that he was Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, international fugitive and Captain America’s best friend; back then he’d just been James, the twitchy disabled vet that Clint had been kinda hopelessly crushing on. That he’d been starting to hope might feel a little that way too. 

“I, er,” Clint says, shuffling a little before going to switch on the coffee maker. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you back here. I figured - I mean you’ve got Steve back, so -” 

He turns, and then flinches backwards; he’d forgotten how goddamn quietly the guy could move. 

“You were never Steve’s substitute,” he says, quiet and intense, his face tilted up so his grey eyes meet Clint’s. 

“No,” Clint says, “no, I know, I could never -”

James lifts his hand, presses cool metal against Clint’s lips. Clint fails at swallowing back the soft sound he makes. 

“You are something else,” James says. 


	81. Chapter 81

The door opened and then shut again quickly, before too much light could get in and attempt to kill Clint again. Only reason he didn’t whimper was because every noise made it feel like his teeth were gonna vibrate out of his skull - Mjolnir had only caught him a glancing blow as it whipped past, in fact from what the doctors said he might just’ve been caught up in the wake, but it had left him with one hell of a goddamn headache. 

“’m sorry,” he croaked. Regretted it immediately. 

“Shh.” Bucky’s hand laid along the side of his face, the heel of his hand at Clint’s temple and his thumb brushing carefully against his forehead, followed immediately by the gentle touch of his lips. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He pitched it low - he’d learned how to deal with Clint’s head injuries - and avoided whispering ‘cos the sibilance played hell with his aids. 

“Reservations?” Clint asked, and Bucky brushed another kiss, catching his eyebrow this time.

“So many. I love you, sweetheart, but your timing sucks.” 

“‘m sorry,” he said again, and then Bucky spent a good five minutes propping him incrementally up, until he could sip on a straw without drowning himself in it. When he was laid down again Bucky had switched out the pillows, and the cool fresh cotton felt amazing against his skin. Clint’s throat went a little thick with it, and he had to swallow hard. 

“Love you,” he said, “got you a card.” 

“Saw it,” Bucky said, and he was smiling, Clint could tell. His voice went all warm and slow when he was smiling. Card said ‘ _I Loaf You_ ’, but the breadmaker Clint’d had to hide in the cupboards under the kitchen counter; seemed like all Bucky ever did was bitch about how the bread at the bodega wasn’t a patch on his ma’s. And when Bucky smiled in the morning, that was the best goddamn part of Clint’s day. 

“Got you a card too,” he said, soft and low and calculated not to hurt, “but it’s over at Tony’s place.” 

Clint made a soft noise of enquiry. 

“After all the reservations, I was gonna take you up there, give you roses, best view in New York city.” 

Bucky’s cool metal hand rested on Clint’s forehead for a second, blissful against the pain there, and then it moved down and left something colder and heavier than anything so small and round should be. 

“Happy anniversary, baby,” he said. “We can try the date again next week, maybe, but I was kinda hopin’ you’d say yes today.” 


	82. Chapter 82

An arrow thudded into the ground an inch in front of the Soldier’s boot, and he stopped immediately, flinched backward, scanned the surroundings for the threat. It took him more than the moment he was used to; the man was further away than anyone able to make that shot should be, perched on the roof of a Hook-A-Duck stall like an overgrown gargoyle, his bright purple shirt causing him to blend in amongst the cheap carnival prizes. 

The chaos of the carnival continued around him, the welter of sounds and colors and smells disorienting after so long in the cold and the dark. The Soldier darted sideways, out of the line of fire, and then cast around for his target amongst the milling crowd. 

There - he looked hunted, as he should, brown hair stained by sweat at the temples. The bag on his back likely held the information and money he had taken. The Soldier plotted a trajectory, risked a glance at the Hook-A-Duck stall to check his calculations, and found the stall empty of the rogue archer. 

The Soldier scowled. He had not been permitted to wear his mask on this mission, dressed instead in civilian clothing, sent out on the orders of one much lower in the command structure than was usual. He pushed his hair back out of his face and decided to forget the archer; he had body armor that would likely protect him, and his mission was paramount. 

His target darted into a tent, green striped and musty, overheating in the sun. The Soldier followed him in only to find himself confronted by the archer, bow drawn and feet planted wide. 

“He may be an asshole, but he’s my brother,” he said apologetically, as the target darted out of sight. The words were - familiar. Strangely so; the world was ever a mass of confusion and fragmented half-remembrances, but these words were as familiar as the back of his hand. As the ribs they curled over in stark black letters. 

“How do you know my words?” he asked, confused and, for a moment, lost. The archer’s mouth dropped open and he lowered his bow. 

“I’m sorry,” the Soldier said - another anomaly - and shot him in the thigh. 


	83. Chapter 83

“You will sit here,” Coach Fury said, “and you will hold each other’s damn hands until you can apologise for getting in a fight and nearly losing us the damn championship,  _am_  I clear Mr Barton?” 

“Clear!” Clint chirped. 

“Mr Barnes?” 

Bucky saluted awkwardly with his prosthetic, ‘cos Fury had vetoed the position that meant he didn’t actually have to touch Clint’s skin. 

“Good. Now get your damn heads out of your damn asses and shape the hell up.” 

It was amazing how Fury’s mild curse words could turn the air blue. Bucky slumped back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and resting his head on the uncomfortable plastic back, staring up at the bright blue sky. He tried to ignore Clint’s palm against his, how it was warm and a little sweaty, how the calluses on his fingers caught a little against Bucky’s skin. 

Clint huffed out a breath, swinging Bucky’s hand a little. 

“Quit it.” 

“I’m already bored.” 

Clint was pretty much never still, not unless he was practising archery down where the school fields backed onto the woodland. Bucky wouldn’t admit to it, but he’d watched him a couple times, from over by the equipment shed where he sometimes hid out with Steve. When he was braced like that, shifting only minutely to get his shot, he could be almost eerily beautiful; every other day, when he was shifting and tapping and flicking and constantly, endlessly  _talking_ , he was so goddamn sexy that Bucky kinda wanted to punch him in the mouth. 

“I swear to god, Barton…” Bucky said, through gritted teeth, lifting his head. 

“What?” Clint said, sitting up a little, turning in his chair to face him, that cocky asshole grin on his face. “What’re you gonna do?” 

Bucky’s therapist had a whole bunch to say about his habit of hitting people. About repressed trauma, and PTSD, and this whole thing where he was sublimating his need for touch into something that was acceptable in ‘the macho world of sports’. He actually used phrases like that. Bucky thought he was kind of an asshole. 

He maybe had something, though. Because Bucky’s fists were itching again, ‘cos this was how Clint had looked on the pitch, with his short shorts and the mud streaked along his jaw, with the sweat darkening his hair and the challenge in his grin. And Bucky had wanted - he hadn’t been able to - 

“C’mon, Barnes,” Clint said, every inch of him a taunt, a tease, a call to fuckin’ action. “What’re you gonna do?” 

“Oh fuck you,” Bucky breathed, and lurched forward in his chair, pressing his mouth clumsily to Clint’s before pulling away, horrified, desperately wishing he’d gone for the damned punch. 

“What?” 

“I’d’ve hit you,” Bucky said, helpless, “but I didn’t have a spare fuckin’ hand.” 


	84. Chapter 84

“What in the gorram hell,” Bucky muttered, striding across the cargo hold to where the small crate lay. The inside of it was packed tight with a purple sweater that Steve had knitted for Clint after the job on one of the rim planets, when Clint had damn near frozen to death. Lying on top of that -

“What in the  _gorram_   _hell_ ,” Bucky shouted, “is a  _baby_  doing on the ship?”

The tiny thing startled, shaking awake, and its tiny fists clenched and its tiny mouth opened, a noise like one of Tony’s sirens filling the cavernous room. Bucky took an automatic step backwards, flinching at the loud hark back to engine failures and hull damage and that time a mutated rat had got into the ducts.

“Ah yes, good work,” Wanda snapped, emerging from behind the crates with a nutrient pouch in one hand and a mug of steaming water in the other. “Of course you are left alone with him for one minute and you make him cry. Hold these.” Barely pausing to make sure Bucky had a grip, she bent to pick up the baby, crooning at it softly and gently stroking its back. “Yes,” she said, “yes, it’s okay, his face is scary for all of us.”

“Did you -” Bruce walked through the hatch, tripping on his way through and then turning, startled, as though the layout of the ship was still a surprise to him. He was carrying a large syringe without a needle and something that might’ve been a stuffed animal, once upon a time. “Oh, he’s awake. Good.” He walked over to Bucky and took the nutrient pouch, crumbling the block into the steaming mug and swirling it around with the end of the syringe.

“What in the go tsao de -”

“ _Language_ ,” Steve snapped, and great, the whole damned gang was here.

“What in,” Bucky said, slowly, and carefully, and perfectly articulated, “the  _actual fuck_  is going on here, cap?”

“Barton brought him aboard,” Steve said. “We were out in the black before I found out about it, and if you think I’m gonna risk the little guy’s health by dumping him on some -” he paused, then reached forward and carefully cupped his hands over the baby’s ears. “Some shee-niou space station -”

Bruce took the mug, carefully loading up the syringe with the nutrient-rich sludge, and Bucky took the opportunity to throw his hands up at the lot of them and stalk off to one of the staircases up to the metal catwalk, thundering across to the hatch to the bridge. Clint - who had his feet up on the dash, and was attempting to balance an arrow on his nose - flinched himself upright at his crashing entrance.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, automatically, and Bucky glowered, folding his arms across his chest.

“You didn’t bring the baby on board.”

“Oh that. Yeah, I did that,” Clint said, breaking eye contact and turning to fiddle with something that Bucky was pretty sure didn’t require any fiddling.

“Why,” Bucky asked, “what were you talking about?”

“The… baby?” Clint said, and tried for an innocent grin, but he didn’t have the kind of face that wore innocent so well, and he still wasn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky shook his head, decided to deal with one problem at a time. They could deal with whatever the hell else Clint had messed up later.

“Wanna tell me why we’ve got a gorram baby aboard a futzin’  _pirate ship_?”

Clint’s smile settled a little more firmly into reality, at that, ‘cos he’d been trying to get them to call it a pirate ship for months but Steve had refused to let it catch on.

“It didn’t like that planet,” Clint said, a little defiant. “It said the food was terrible.”

“Clint -”

Clint shrugged off the hand Bucky rested on his shoulder, looking at nothing particular real intently.

“They were sellin’ him, Buck,” he snapped. “I hadta -” His voice frayed to nothing against the sharp words.

“Shit,” Bucky said.

Trafficking was big on the worlds on the rim. There was never enough labour, never enough cheap sex, never enough - if the inner planets’ news holos were to be believed - meat. Never enough contraception and too many mouths to feed…

The lucky ones, like Natalia, ended up trained as Companions. Bucky would never, not  _ever_  call her experience lucky to her face.

The unlucky ones -

Clint’d been sold by his brother. He didn’t like to talk about it.

Bucky approached carefully. Got into his eyeline, 'cos his aids weren’t so good with ambient sounds and Bucky’d always walked soft.

“I  _had_  to,” Clint said miserably, and Bucky crouched down in front of him, didn’t touch until Clint signed that it was okay. Wasn’t more'n a second, then, before they were standing and Clint was wrapped up tight in his arms - he insisted on sleeping that way, too, called it a comfort. Bucky suspected he liked the reassurance that Bucky would never let him go, and hell if anyone was ever gonna pry his metal arm loose.

“Intrigued to know how the hell you figure we’re gonna look after a baby on a damn smuggling boat,” Bucky said, rocking Clint back and forth a little, breathing warm against his hair. “We got sharp edges, we got unprotected gorram drops, we got  _Tony_  -”

“Tony’s good with kids!” Clint protested, and Bucky snorted.

“Tony  _is_  a gorram kid. Not sure if we’ve got an actual adult on this whole ship, unless you count Natalia, and I’d like to see you ask her to look after a baby.” Clint tensed a little in Bucky’s arms, and a horrible suspicion crept into his mind. “I mean,” he said, slow and careful, “what kinda space-brained idiot would agree to look after a baby that ain’t even their own kin?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, picking at the buttons on Bucky’s jacket fretfully, “about that…”


	85. Chapter 85

“This is… the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Clint says. “I mean, the competition there is rough, there were a couple of moments in Budapest, but -” 

“Weren’t you mind-controlled by an alien god, at one point?” Bucky Barnes’ voice was coming from about waist level. Clint was trying, so very,  _very_  ha-  _deliberately_ , not to think about that. 

“Okay, number one, we don’t bring up Oki-Lay. I don’t know who told you the rules, but that’s way up there with Ultron and Natasha’s crimping iron, okay, that is a no-go area.” Clint whipped out an arrow, nocked, shot; took down two of the bots at once. “Number two, at no point with You Know Who was anyone forced to snuggle with me unwillingly.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. Clint couldn’t actually see his face, ‘cos the best position for this was from behind - and Jesus, that was some unfortunate wording that Clint was gonna think about ha-  _deliberately_ , later - but he just had this eye-rolling vibe. Like he had exasperation in his  _soul_. 

“Yeah, well I ain’t the one who came out without sleeves in a snow storm, pal,” he said. 

“Okay, a) one sleeve is not the full component of sleeves, so your moral high ground is seriously precarious over there,” Clint said, taking out another three bots with two arrows simultaneously, and he wasn’t gonna say anything about how good the reluctant ‘nice shot’ from below felt. “And 2) I have not yet met a SHIELD wardrobe mistress who could deal with the level of flexible I’d require, with these guns.” 

“Wardrobe mistress?” Bucky asked, and Clint looked down and met his eyes. 

“Screw you, I grew up in the circus, some terms stick.” 

Bucky was currently crouching at Clint’s feet, his arms wrapped around Clint’s waist and his face in kinda uncomfortable proximity to his ass. He’d run out of bullets before they’d run out of bots, and he had a supersoldier’s metabolism and resulting elevated body heat, and Clint - with his boomerang arrows and resulting endless ammunition - had been shaking too hard to aim. The solution they’d come up with was life-saving but uncomfortable for everyone involved, which described way too much of Clint’s life, frankly. 

“Seriously, though,” Clint said, tracking another bot and firing as soon as they got close enough to each other that he could take both down, “I’m sorry. I know I’m the last person you wanna snuggle with.” Ever since that incident with the loosely tethered locker room towel, and the rampaging Stark Bot that Clint’d had to take down while largely failing to keep it tethered, Bucky’d been avoiding him. Like full on, no-look, leaving a room when he entered avoiding him. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.” 

“Yeah,” said Bucky, resting his forehead against Clint’s hip. “ _Last person_  ain’t exactly accurate.” 

Clint looked down, startled, taking out the last bot without looking, and registered the rising blush that had reached Bucky’s cheekbones and was making a play for the top of his ears. 

“Wait,” he said. “What?” 

Bucky shrugged a little, the hands pressed against Clint’s stomach moving ever so slightly lower with the motion. 

“I’m a sucker for guns,” he said. 

“Wow. I, uh. What the -  _wow_ ,” Clint said, articulately, although apparently the gobsmacked expression on his face was a little more communicative, ‘cos Bucky’s expression slid from rueful to considering and right through to a suggestive sorta smile. 

“Wanna go find somewhere I can warm you up?” he said. 


	86. Chapter 86

Clint came up behind him and Bucky bristled automatically, just waiting for the smartass remarks. 

“You want me to get that for you?” was all he said, but Bucky had the sneaking suspicion that as blank as his expression might be, internally he was laughing.

“You want me to knock out your front teeth?” Bucky asked, not turning around, and Clint was startled into a laugh. 

“Gimme the time and opportunity and I’ll likely do it to myself,” Clint said, and when Bucky turned - having finally coaxed the fancy coffee off the high shelf where Steve had hidden it from Tony - it was to find him wearing a self-effacing grin. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and held up the tin. “Coffee?” 

The grin spread into something more genuine, and a damned sight prettier. Bucky ducked his head - no chance Clint could read his expression, not from that height - and set about making them drinks. 

*

A little step-stool appeared in the kitchen, black and gray and with a small red-lined cut-out of a star. The first time he saw it, Clint had just left on a covert mission, which was a good thing for the continued survival of his damned teeth. 

For a week Bucky had to put up with Sam’s shitty trash-talk and Natalia’s unnerving silence when he played video games, and he found himself - unexpected - kinda looking forward to Clint’s return. He hadn’t registered the ways Clint had sidled in on the edges of his life, not ‘til he was turning and expecting him to be there. 

He didn’t know Clint was back until he was reaching for the coffee again, having given in and grabbed the stool, having made a mental note to superglue something to Steve’s stupid head. 

He tossed the coffee onto the counter and turned to hop down, but found Clint standing exactly where he needed to land, looking up at him, his expression intent and almost familiar, his teeth biting nervously into his bottom lip. 


	87. Chapter 87

Clint was still giggling quietly at the look Tasha had shot him while they were listening to Steve’s speech about fair play, and fighting with honour - the look that had said  _seriously, you expected anything different?_  

He honestly hadn’t been sure what to expect; most of the snowball fights Clint has had in his life have been drunken ones, ‘cos his childhood wasn’t much for that sort of thing, and no one without superpowers was gonna take him on without giving him a severe handicap first. So it’s unusual to be able to see things clearly, weird to be able to spot the unattended pile of ammunition with - with the suspiciously flat snow next to it - 

“It’s a trap!” he bellowed, slipping inelegantly and stumbling as he tried to backpedal immediately, “Steve, Tasha, it’s a-” he got a face full of snow as the Winter Soldier burst out of a snowdrift like an unholy nightmare and yanked his ankle out from under him. 

Maybe he shoulda expected this. Guerrilla tactics and fierce competitiveness and cutthroat ambition, and - man, he woulda liked hanging out with Bucky and Steve when they were kids, he was pretty sure. Clint flopped over onto his back, spitting out water and watching his laughter curl into the air, and after a second Bucky appeared above him, looking down at him fondly before dropping a snowball directly onto his face. 

“Yeah, okay,” he sputtered, shaking his head violently and pushing up to rest on his elbows, “you got me, no question about it, this is me thoroughly goddamn got.” He tilted his chin up a little, baring the line of his throat, and Bucky sighed and crunched over to a tree behind which he’d stashed a waterproof bag, pulling out a goddamn  _scarf_ , of all things. It was striped yellow and black, and it was just about the least stealthy thing in the universe, and he came over to carefully wrap it around Clint’s neck. 

“You’re an idiot,” he said fondly, and used the ends of the scarf to tug Clint in a little closer, which Clint took full advantage of, curling his freezing cold hand around the back of Bucky’s neck and making him flinch, pulling him in so he could press his mouth against Bucky’s. 

In the distance, a shriek that might’ve been Tony; an outraged yell that might’ve been Sam. 

“Oh yeah,” Clint said, still close enough that his breath warmed Bucky’s lips. “By the way, it’s a trap.” 


	88. Chapter 88

“This is not subtle,” Clint said, smirking as he was pushed backwards, Bucky’s hands curled over his shoulders, not a hint in sight. 

“I tried subtle,” Bucky said, glowering at the wall over Clint’s head to ensure that he got the placement just exactly right. “I tried subtle, Clint, and you broke three glasses and gave yourself a black eye -” 

“I maintain the  _couch_  gave me that black eye, with  _malicious intent_  -” 

“So we ain’t doin’ that any more. Gonna make sure every intention is pretty damned clear from now on.” 

“Oh look,” Clint said drily, tilting his head to look up at the mistletoe hanging directly over him. “Mistletoe. How did that get there.” 

“‘cos apparently wooing is for people who didn’t fall out of the dumbass tree,” Bucky groused, “and hit every damned branch on the way down.” 

“I’m not  _dumb -”_ Clint protested, but fell silent when Bucky cupped the side of his face and pressed a metal thumb against his lips. 

“I know you ain’t, sweetheart,” he said, looking fond, his voice low enough that it was only for Clint. “First time I’ve got you to admit it, too.  _Someone_  taught you you were, though, and taught you to shoot yourself through the foot at every opportunity, too, and I ain’t gonna let that asshole screw this up for me.” 

Clint just kinda gaped at that, his mouth soft and open and pretty much the embodiment of temptation itself, so Bucky ducked in - slow, with plenty of time for Clint to accidentally give him a black eye if he wanted to protest this - and made his intentions goddamn  _known_. 


	89. Chapter 89

Clint blinked his eyes open, wincing immediately at the sharp pain at the back of his head. He blinked upwards, snow falling gently onto his face, and vaguely contemplated pushing himself upright; apparently the signals that bridged the gap between thought and action weren’t quite firing, yet. 

“Oh shit, sweetheart, are you okay?” 

Clint pondered making a response, pondered what - if he did - his response ought to be. He lurched a little more upright, making it onto his side, and groaned faintly at the dizziness that accompanied the motion, busting in uninvited and messing with all his stuff. 

“Hey, darlin’, it’s okay,” the unfamiliar voice soothed, getting kinda friendly there, “let’s see if we can get you upright, huh?” 

As shitty as he felt, there was no question he’d be warmer if less of him was in contact with the frozen ground, so Clint groaned his agreement and pushed himself awkwardly up so he was sitting, contemplating the slippery ground for a second before looking around at a scrabbling sound. 

“There you go, baby,” the guy crooned, as he carefully propped Lucky up to his feet - and yeah. Yeah, that made more sense. Clint hunched forward over his knees, waiting for the world to stop spinning, and noted idly that the guy’s bare feet were going red against the frozen sidewalk, that he was dressed in low slung flannel pants with red stars on and a tank that clung to his abs and showed off his gorgeously muscled arm. Noted idly that he was kinda beautiful even when he was scowling, so he shoulda guessed that he’d be talking to Clint’s dog. 

“There ya go, good boy,” he said. “Let’s get you inside, huh?” 

Clint probed carefully at the back of his head, checked that the wet there wasn’t blood, winced at the goose egg he found. He looked up, caught the storm-gray eyes of the guy who was babying his pathetically limping dog. 

“You coming, asshole?” the guy said. 


	90. Chapter 90

“Woah.” Clint skipped back a couple of paces, ‘cos stuck to the sidewalk with putty or not, this guy kinda looked like he could kick Clint’s ass. “Don’t look at me like that, man.” 

“Who the hell booby traps their damn mail?”

“Who the hell  _steals other people’s_?” Clint put his hands on his hips, ‘cos that pose always worked for Steve, then took them off again. The guy’s raised eyebrow kinda indicated that he wasn’t impressed by Poses of Righteousness, or possibly Clint’s purple sweatpants. 

They stared at each other for a second - wasn’t exactly a hardship, the guy had seriously pretty eyes when they weren’t hidden behind all that hair - and then the he looked away. 

“I was hungry,” he said, his arms tensing a little as he pulled against the putty. “The guy at the bodega down the street’ll buy shit, sometimes.” He shrugged as much as he was able, and Clint let out a long breath. 

“Fine,” he said, pulled the bottle of putty dissolving shit out of his pants pocket and carefully freed the guy who was, turned out, still terrifying when he was standing, but actually kinda short. “C’mon.” Clint jerked his head towards the building. 

“What the - who the hell  _are_  you?” 

“Clint Barton,” he said. “Hi.” 

“The guy with all the sex toys.” 

“The guy with  _no_  sex toys, ‘cos you kept freakin’ stealing them, asshole. How much did you get for them, anyway?” 

The guy shrugged. “Literally nothing, they’re in the dumpster behind your building, nobody wants that freaky shit.” 

“Well it’s not often my package is a disappointment,” Clint said, just to see if he could get that pretty pink mouth to curve into a smile, “but I guess that means I owe you a meal.” 


	91. Chapter 91

No good deed goes unpunished. 

That was actually always one of Barney’s favourite asshole phrases, and while Clint has always kinda made it a rule not to live by anything Barney takes as true, this one has proved itself pretty apt. 

_Technically_  you could probably argue that this is Clint’s fault.  _Technically_ , if he’d been a little better organised, maybe thought about the Secret Santa Sam had organised more than a half hour before - 

The fact is that he’d got Bucky, Mr Enigma himself, and the subject of more than a few of Clint’s filthiest dreams. The fact is that he’d had to struggle against the urge to buy the guy something ridiculous and expensive and probably lethal, just to see if he could earn himself a smile. The fact is that he’d been well aware that there was no way he was gonna find himself something at the bodega on the corner, so he’d had to settle for something already owned and rarely used, and hope like hell no one would recognise it. 

And now he’s gotta deal with Bucky Barnes, assassin extraordinaire, curled up all warm and fuzzy in a sweater knitted for Clint by a trick rider and sent over from Russia, and it’s short-circuiting every part of his brain. 

Clint is overwhelmed by the urge to snuggle, and there’s a distinct possibility it’d be the death of him. 

 

 


	92. Chapter 92

“Look,” the guy said, and Bucky scowled at him and carefully held his goddamn beard out of the way, because it was nine in the f-festive morning, he’d only had  _one_  jingling coffee before this one, and he’d already been cried on twice. He didn’t have time for kinda-cute dads with coffee stains on their shirts and apologetic looks on their faces. “I kinda need to ask you a favour.” 

“It’s my break,” he said eventually, when the guy didn’t take the hint and am-scray. “Wait in line like everyone else.” 

“No, right, we are in line,” he said, and kinda waved towards the front, where three admittedly adorable kids were standing with a tired-looking beautiful woman, and Bucky’s scowl deepened a little ‘cos what was the point of kinda-cute dads if they came as part of a pair? 

“Okay,” Bucky said slowly, making it clear that he seriously didn’t have time for this. 

“Nate’s godmother took ‘em to the grotto in our local park, last week, and they told the Santa there that they wished for me to move back in,” the guy said, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing awkwardly. “And then Layla made a Christmas wish in school -” he kinda mimed pulling something out of an envelope, and then made a tiny explosion with his hands. Bucky was willing to bet there’d been glitter - “and she wished for us to be a family like everyone else’s. Then we took them to the Santa’s workshop in some mall in Jersey, and they all wished for us to be together.” 

“I - look, I’m sorry, pal, but I ain’t exactly a marriage counsellor -”

The guy gave him a startled look, wide blue eyes and tousled blond hair, and upgrade the kinda-cute to seriously sorta beautiful, and why not kick Bucky in the jingle-bells while you’re at it. He pinched the bridge of his nose as the guy sputtered. 

“No - look, I’m  _-_ we’ve never been - I just want you to be gentle in putting them off. I’m like ninety three percent gay,” he said eventually, and Bucky snorted. 

“Ninety three?”

“It’s - usually more like seventy five.” The guy chewed on his lip and ducked his head, a wash of pink colouring his cheeks. “But you’re kinda hot, for a Santa.” 


	93. Chapter 93

Clint turned to the room, hands spread in appeal.

“C’mon, people, be honest with me here.” His eyes lit. “Cap! Cap, you gotta know what I’m talking about, right? You’re in a war, no girls around, and you got Bucky there who’s so pretty I kinda want to die sometimes -“

Steve went a little pink, the tips of his ears all flushed, which distracted helpfully from the quick irresistible smile Bucky tried to bite down.

“You musta, right?” Clint made an unmistakeable hand motion. “Relieved a little tension?”

“Bucky relieved tension with a lot of guys, back then,” Steve said, and Bucky let his hidden smile spread into a proper, shit-eating grin, ‘Cos hell yeah, he did. “But I’ve just always liked dames.”

“Tony,” Clint tried, but Tony held up his hand immediately.

“Leave me out of this, Buttercup. I never claimed to be straight.”

“Tasha?” Clint looked a little hopeless now. “You know I’m not -“

“Oh, Clint,” she said, fond, a little exasperated, and Clint’s face fell. Bucky shoved himself to his feet and went over to him, patting him on the shoulder.

“Sorry, Barton,” he said, overly sympathetic smile in place. “Consensus is the guy at the circus was your boyfriend, and you’re more than a little queer.”

Clint looked - sad, more than anything. Regretful, which didn’t feel so great, until he spoke.

“If is known he was my boyfriend I’da been nicer to him,” he said, softly, ‘Cos under all that idiot was a genuinely sweet heart. Bucky threw caution to the four fuckin’ winds, and stretched up a little to plant one on him - originally intended to be a quick confirmation, until Clint melted right into it, easy as breathing.

“If I’da known he was my boyfriend,” he said, looking right into Bucky’s eyes, “I’d’ve tried a hell of a lot more things.”

“Well y’know, if you want,” Bucky said, “you can try ‘em out with me.”

 

 


	94. Chapter 94

Clint was startled abruptly out of a doze when a fare slammed into the back of his cab, rocking the car with the speed he entered it. Clint reached up to adjust his aids, wincing at the sudden and unwelcome influx of noise, and cocked his head for a second, the sound of distant sirens growing steadily in volume. 

“Sorry, bro,” he said, placing his hands squarely on the wheel where they could be seen, ‘cos he had the privilege of a pale complexion and therefore didn’t have to start straight out with them on his head. “You’re gonna have to find some other loser if you’re looking to escape the cops.” 

There was movement in the back seat, a glint of metal that Clint was seriously hoping was not a gun, and then a face visible in the rear-view mirror - heartbreak pale eyes, long dark hair, and the ominously designed pollution mask somehow didn’t hide the fact that he was all kinds of beautiful. Clint swallowed hard, mouth suddenly kinda dry, and tightened his fingers until the wheel creaked softly. 

“It’s nothing personal,” he said. “I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice criminal, it’s just I got a record and -” 

The guy stared at him, meeting his eyes in the mirror, and it was almost impossible to accurately read an expression on that little facial real estate, but he looked - resigned, maybe. Accepting of a shitty situation in a way that no one should ever be. 

“But I’d do so badly in jail,” Clint said, hopeless, and wished the startled widening of the guy’s pretty eyes didn’t somehow make the risk fuckin’ worth it. 


	95. Chapter 95

Plaskin wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t the most expensive part of ‘droids, not by a long way, but nor was it proprietary technology that could be traced or deactivated long-distance or, on some of the military models, that could explode without warning. Clint was used to finding the bare bones of torn off limbs in dumpsters; he wasn’t used to them twitching. 

“Holy futz!” he yelped, and fell back against the side of the dumpster, grabbing it for balance; his sudden movement unseated the lid and he was plunged into a world of darkness lit only by bright-red pain as the damned thing fell on his hand. 

It didn’t - it didn’t  _feel_  broken, even if his fingers wouldn’t move just yet. He gently shifted his hand, feeling the throbbing ache of bone-deep bruising but nothing that would require medical treatment, which was probably for the best ‘cos his ration card wasn’t getting a top up until Tuesday. 

Clint braced himself into the corner of the dumpster and shoved upwards with his left hand, letting a slice of widening daylight into the depths of the dumpster. It glinted off jointed metal that twitched slightly, which suggested some kinda power source, and the Stark techs payed decent rations for that. He gave the heavy lid enough of a shove that it swung over and rested against the securifield of the building beside him and ducked in closer to examine the - arm, it was an arm now he looked at it closer. 

It wasn’t a design he knew. It was - it was like some kinda holovid from the early 2100s, where they used to picture how life would be in the future. Like someone’d created something ahead of its time out of whatever materials were available. 

The fingers still articulated, something whirring deep in the arm as he bent them back and forth; it looked like it had taken a lot of abuse, so he suspected this might even be an older model, back from when things were made to last. 

He got so distracted by the model, the design, that he tried to tug with both hands and almost threw up when he curled his hand wrong. It was easier to shift the shit off it, trying to find the place where metal plates bent and separated, where cables curled in the light. It was intact up to the shoulder joint, though, and there was a messy join where the plaskin had been torn away. They - they musta given up? They musta been unable to unearth this thing, ‘cos beyond that point the skin covering was intact, and Clint was starting to think he might’ve actually made a decent find here. 

Clint pondered the arm, the shoulder, where it joined to whatever was left of the chest. He considered whether he could detach it somewhere below the shoulder, give up the bigger score in favour of something he could actually carry, and he returned to the hand, idly fiddling with the joints as he pondered. 

Scared the hell out of him when it suddenly flexed and lunged for his neck. 

He was so preoccupied with the metal fingers attempting to close around his throat that he didn’t notice the shifting of the rubbish mound, almost couldn’t focus on the perfect pale face, long dark hair, pale blue eyes of the futzin’  _intact ‘droid_  that rose out of the trash. 

“Holy shit,” he choked out, when he finally got his eyes to uncross. “Holy futzin’ shit are you a  _buckybot?”_


	96. Chapter 96

Bucky found Clint a little later that day, nosing around in Shuri’s workshop but taking care not to touch anything. He’d expected it to be a little awkward, if he was honest - running into him like this - but Clint’s face actually lit up when he saw him. 

“Hey,” he said, “Bucky, tell me you’ve worked out how to make coffee while you’ve been here?” And maybe it wasn’t quite the reason he wanted Clint to need him close, but he supposed it’d do for now. 

Bucky managed to find the coffeemaker on his third try, and once they both had mugs in hand Clint grabbed his metal fingers and tugged him over to the elevator, fifty floors in a fraction of the time it should take and barely a sensation that you were moving. He led his way unerringly through rock-walled passages and they emerged from a cave mouth, the sun just edging over the horizon and the land spread out perfectly below. 

Naturally, Clint headed straight for the edge, dangling his legs over the impossible drop; Bucky sat a little further back from the edge, but close enough to touch. If that was what Clint wanted. 

“In post-apocalyptic future films,” Clint said, staring thoughtfully out at Wakanda’s incredible scenery, the gentle dawn light resting soft on his face, “there’s always two options. You’ve got your perfect clean sharp-edged technologically advanced future - “ he gestured around him, demonstratively - “and then you got your grubby trash pile greaser kinda deal.” 

He turned and grinned at Bucky, kinda heartbreaking in how easy he did it, and Bucky wanted to reach out and rub at the grease mark he had along his cheekbone, who the hell knows where he’d picked it up. 

“I kinda feel like I wound up in the wrong genre,” Clint said. “Which woulda worried me, only I guess I’m the romantic hero now, which I’m pretty sure means I get to stay.” 

This time it was him who reached out, cupping Bucky’s cheek in his palm in a reflection of what Bucky’d done earlier, in the darkness of a mountain-deep corridor and just grateful to see Clint stumbling over himself, real and present and clumsy as hell in a way that nothing in this place’d ever been. It was nicer like this, in the light, made clumsy only ‘cos they were smiling. 


	97. Chapter 97

Rumlow and Steve are going at it again, gloves dropped and helmets on the ice. It’s no surprise but it’s inconveniently timed, ‘cos the closest member of the opposition is Sitwell and there’s no way Clint’s gonna cling onto him. He tries to subtly scoot forward, ignoring Tony’s grab for the back of his jersey; it’s not like the ref is gonna suspect him of getting involved in the fight, not when he’s headed in precisely the wrong direction. 

He just - he has preferences. he has wants. He has a truly unhelpful crush on Bucky Barnes, Hydra’s enforcer, and if there’s gonna be a fight that’s who he’s gonna cling to, if there’s opportunity to do so. 

He catches a glimpse of Bucky’s distinctive eyeblack and heads that way, spreading his arms a little so Bucky knows to catch him, but before he can manage to properly collide the fight’s over - Steve and Rumlow are both sent to the penalty boxes, Steve for two minutes and Rumlow for four, ‘cos the asshole can’t ever keep his mouth shut when the ref breaks it up. 

Probably makes Clint a bad team mate that he wishes Steve could’ve kept getting beat just a little longer, huh. 

The Avengers end up losing, 4-3, and even Clint’s sniping skills weren’t enough to save ‘em. He rolls his eyes through the traditional talk from Steve - about how they’re all a team, and Clint can’t blame himself for not being everywhere at once, and all the well-meaning bullshit that he always comes out with. He ducks in and out of the showers as quickly as he can, hustles into his street clothes and ducks past the media, who’re gonna want to talk to Steve ‘face of the franchise’ Rogers in any case. He makes his way out to the underground car park and tenses up a little when he sees someone leaning up against his truck. Wouldn’t be the first time an over-eager fan managed to get past the security, but it’s barely a fraction of a second before he recognises the long hair, broad shoulders, smeared eyeblack from where he clearly rushed through his own shower. 

“Shouldn’t you be getting on the coach?” Clint calls, and Bucky shrugs one shoulder, awkward. 

“They’ll wait,” he says. “Not sure I want to.” 

“Wait for what?” Clint asks, his heart making a play at being mouthguard, and he can’t quite believe what he’s saying when Bucky ducks his head a little, pink fighting against the smears of black, and spreads his arms. 

 

 


	98. Chapter 98

“Leah Beth,” Clint said, low and intent, “does any part of me look like I am kidding right now?” 

He hated when her eyes got all big like that, when they filled with tears, and it was at least a thousand times worse when he knew it was his fault. It was okay she was scared though, it was safer that way - and hey, it was one last thing they got to share, right? 

Leah scrambled into the fort under the porch, where they’d piled up the sides until they were feet thick; he’d waited until she was asleep that night to pile on some sheet metal they’d had out in the barn, covered over with enough snow to make sure they both avoided tetanus. Wasn’t like he hadn’t been waiting for this day. 

Clint squinted out into the snow, out to where the guy had come to a full stop, his arms held a little away from his sides like he thought he was at the O.K. Corral. His hair was longer now. He’d stopped wearing the mask, and in this weather Clint kinda wondered if he missed it. 

He dropped his hand to his pocket - little surprised he didn’t get shot for it - and tugged out his phone. Leah knew to call Auntie Nat if anything happened to him, it was one of the first things he’d taught her, almost as soon as she knew how to speak. Couldn’t hurt to get a head start on the reinforcements though, right? A three button sequence and his saved message was sent, and he dropped his phone where he stood and put his hands over his head, smiling a little crooked. Always said it’d be how he met death. 

“Hey man,” he called, his voice steady, covering the soft sniffling coming from behind him. “You ever see Bucky again, you let him know I miss him, huh?” 

“Hey, Clint,” and that - that wasn’t the Soldier’s voice, he’d been running from him long enough to fuckin’ know that that was - 

“I miss you too,” Bucky said. 


	99. Chapter 99

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” 

Clint laughed. Clint - tried to laugh, although it came out sounding more like a sob, and felt like something hot and metal and pointy as hell was trying to claw its way out of his insides. 

“I know what I’m asking,” he said, struggling for breath between the words, “I know - what I want. I know  _you_.” 

Bucky’s eyes flared red in the darkness at the end of the alley, just a moment before he squeezed them shut. “Clint -” 

Clint stopped moving and leaned against the damp brick wall beside him. He knew it wouldn’t take more than a stumble to get Bucky close to him, and he was pretty sure a stumble was all he had left in him. He didn’t want to force a choice like that. 

“You don’t know what  _I_  want,” Bucky said, and Clint tried to brace himself a little better against the wall, his knees threatening to give out from under him. 

“Is it me?” he asked, letting his hand dropped back to his side, ‘cos it wasn’t like it was doing much to stop the flow. “I’m hoping it’s me.” 

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” Bucky asked, suddenly wary in a way he hadn’t been. The patter of Clint’s blood hitting the ground had maybe got a little hard to ignore. “Clint, you fuckin’ asshole -” 

“Yeah,” Clint said, finally letting himself slide down the wall, tipping his head back and looking up at the night sky, “bite me.” 


	100. Chapter 100

“Buckyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” 

Bucky automatically braced himself, ‘cos that tone was one he knew; sure enough within thirty seconds he had an archer draped over his back, Clint even warmer than the July sun, smelling of fairground popcorn and heat. 

“Hey Clint,” Bucky said, and patted at the arm that was slung across his chest, not slowing down any ‘cos Clint had long legs, he could stumble at Bucky’s pace just fine. 

“Where’re we going?” Clint asked, shifting around some so he was walking at Bucky’s side, his arm slung across Bucky’s shoulders. He always got like this when he’d been drinking, and he’d found a pair of Russian acrobats he used to know - last Bucky saw they’d been feeding him vodka and petting his hair. Bucky had had to leave ‘cos his fists had kept clenching. 

“Figured I should find Steve,” he said, “make sure Wilson’s not being a bad influence and persuading him onto any rides. Pretty sure the gravitas of Captain America wouldn’t hold out long against pictures of him puking in a fairground trash can.” 

“Aaw.” Clint hauled him in a little closer, squeezed him tight, because Bucky’s life really wasn’t difficult enough already. “You’re such a good friend,” he said. 

“Great,” Bucky said, patting at Clint’s back, his jaw clenched tight. “Fuckin’ fantastic. That’s exactly what I want you to think.” 


	101. Chapter 101

Clint tosses the egg up in the air, catches it in the crook of his neck, lets it roll down to his elbow, flips it back up into the air and it lands precisely next to Bucky’s hand, where it… smashes. 

“Ah, yeah. Sorry. I mostly used to do that with boiled eggs.” 

Bucky flicks pieces of egg-shell off his hand - Clint’s already resigned himself to the epic clean-up this is gonna take - and jerks his head, beckoning Clint over. 

“C’mon,” he says, “let’s give folding another try, huh?” 

“I don’t get why I can’t just mix it,” he says, plaintive, and Bucky laughs and settles back against his chest, cradling the bowl. 

“Shut up and grab the spoon,” he says, and carefully guides Clint’s hand in the right motion, his fingers warm against Clint’s. Clint figures it’d take maybe a half-inch of movement to press his lips to Bucky’s temple, and he’s more than halfway tempted to try. This is - this is beyond buddies, right? Cake baking ain’t any kind of judgement of his masculinity, he’s watched the British Bake Off, and half the women on there could kick his ass just from preparing for bread week. But there’s probably a more efficient method for showing Clint how to make cake than stepping into the circle of his arms, right? He gets to read something into Bucky voluntarily getting that close? 

So yeah, he’s hovering, he’s pushing his luck and his concepts of personal space just the tiniest bit, he can feel the ratcheting tension like a storm in the air - 

And he almost jumps out of his damned skin when there’s a pounding on the door. 

“Fuck,” he says, a little shakily, and Bucky grins down at the cake batter, biting down on just the corner of his lip. “Just - hold that thought,” Clint says, and Bucky’s grin widens, ‘cos they’re - he’s pretty sure they’re on the same page. 

“Hey Mrs Rana,” he says, “what can I -” 

“Your muffin tin,” she says, holding it out irresistibly. “Bullshit that’s your secret, my cupcakes still aren’t fluffy as yours.” 

He tries to block her with his body, tries to politely shuffle her away from his door, but he’s pretty sure it’s too late; Bucky’s sniggering in the kitchen, and Clint’s got a sneaking suspicion he’s been rumbled. 

“Thanks, Mrs Rana,” he says, hopelessly, snagging the muffin tin and closing the door. 

“So you need demonstrations, huh?” Bucky says, the corners of his mouth curling up irresistibly, his eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter. 

“In my defense,” Clint says, crossing the room and biting his lip, hoping against hope he’s gonna be allowed to get back in close, “it is really hard to concentrate when -” 

Bucky does them both a favour, doesn’t let him get to the end of his line. 

 

 


	102. Chapter 102

“So we won’t argue,” Bucky said, shrugging and spinning idly back and forth in his chair, the offending article spread out in front of him. “You could always just agree with me.”

“Your best friend is  _Captain Futzin’ America.”_ Clint collapsed into the seat next to Bucky’s, resting his elbow on the table and his head on his fist. “Your ex is the  _Black Widow_. How -” 

“And my current fella has the best aim on the damned planet and looks pretty damned hot in purple, what’s your point?” 

Clint buried his face in his hands, and it coulda been frustration if his ears weren’t slowly turning pink. Bucky reached over and rested his palm over the back of Clint’s neck, right at the vulnerable spot where spine met skull. 

“People’re gonna work it out if you keep saying I’m your favourite,” Clint said, muffled. “You know I can’t keep secrets, my poker face is for shit.” 

Bucky considered for a moment, running his thumb up and down the side of Clint’s neck. 

“Would it be so bad?” he asked, and Clint’s elbow almost slipped off the table in his surprise, he almost lost his balance and smashed his face into the wood. Again.

“What?”

“If people knew,” Bucky said, becoming more certain with every word he spoke. “Would it be that terrible?” 

“You - you want - ?” Clint’s face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, said everything he wasn’t currently articulate enough to put into words; said everything Bucky’d been trying to get across with every answer he gave. 

 

 


	103. Chapter 103

Bucky tipped his head back against the wall, breathing hard. 

“You gonna fuck me, or what?” 

Barton smiled, so slow and so filthy with his bruised-red lips. 

“Only if you’ll say you want it.” 

Bucky pushed against him, stung, and Barton raised his hands, backing off a couple of paces, even at that distance able to almost disappear in the shadows; people made a mistake, dressing in black for darkness. Darkness was shades of purple, deep dark blues. 

He was like the Cheshire cat. Bucky loved to hate his smile. 

“So all of a sudden you got morals now?” he asked, a challenge in his voice, barely an inch away from being a dare. 

“Just because I don’t buy into your happy crappy America and the flag bullshit doesn’t mean I’ve got no morals,” Barton said. 

“Oh yeah,” Bucky said dryly, “you’re like a modern Robin Hood.” 

“Hey,” Barton’s voice was verging on laughter now, “if the bracers fit.” 

Bucky wanted to bite him. Wanted to challenge him. Wanted to fall to his fucking knees.

“I’m not gonna beg,” he said, clipped and angry. 

“Wouldn’t ask you to,” Barton said, and he had eased closer, somehow, and every breath Bucky took he was closer still. “Just quit killing yourself trying not to say yes.” 


	104. Chapter 104

Steven was captivated. Bucky saw it in every line of him, every gesture, every breath. Worse: Anthony saw it too, with his mind like a snake, and the smile he wore like a weapon. For now, while their purposes aligned - while it served both their kingdoms that they sit side by side on their perfectly matched thrones - there was no harm in the way that Steven couldn’t look away. 

For now.

“You worry too much.” 

The voice came from the shadow behind a pillar, where the flickering torchlight didn’t quite dapple. The voice was enough though - the slow accent of the South, where the lack of speed in their honeyed words reflected nothing of their rattlesnake thoughts. Where the sun bleached their hair and kissed their muscles with bronze, and Bucky swallowed hard and looked instead at his king. 

“I worry as an adviser should,” he said. 

The man must be of importance, though Bucky hadn’t learned his name; he had arrived leading a cadre of bowmen and women, casual and laughing and with none of the almost mechanised rigidity of Anthony’s soldiers, the military bearing of Steven’s people. He was dangerous in the way that all things that are unfamiliar are dangerous; Bucky had long since lost the knack of a smile. 

“It is past time for worrying,” the archer said, his bow slung across his back though he had not been permitted to carry in his arrows. Bucky could understand why the guards had allowed it; it almost looked a part of him, the way it was worn. “We ride tomorrow, and the fates will allow us to make our futures as we will, even with your face like a sky that has forgotten the sun.” 

“You prefer to ride to meet death smiling?” 

“I prefer not to meet death at all,” he said, his voice easy and his smile beautiful, like the sun in an empty room. “And if I must meet it, I would rather not meet it riding, for your face has forgotten the sun the way my arse has forgotten the saddle, and if I lose my seat one more time my ward will tie me to my horse.” 

“Could be worse,” Bucky said. 

“Slung across the pommel,” he said, and Bucky was taken unawares by a snort of laughter at the image, at the indignity the man would no doubt bear with a grin. 

“There,” he said, eyes like the southern sky fixed - as warm and endless - on Bucky’s face. “The fates much prefer to smile at someone who smiles back.” 

 

 


	105. Chapter 105

The SHIELD medical staff learned quickly, or they didn’t get the chance to learn at all. 

They learned not to touch the weird looking glowing goop. They learned not to try to provide any medical support to Bruce Banner without gaining explicit consent first. They learned that somehow the size of the mouth did not always dictate the size of the teeth, and they learned that super soldiers healed fast enough that it was never worth the effort of getting them to the infirmary. 

Agnieszka rubbed her nose with the back of her forearm and let out an exasperated sigh. 

“Can someone get on the radio and get Barnes down here?” 

“Barnes?” Miller gave her a smile, like he was inviting her to join in a joke. “Like the Winter Soldier, Barnes? You’re kidding, right?” 

“Tkacz…” 

“On it.” The other guard saluted her and sent out a call, following her orders with quiet efficiency, the way he always did. Sometimes made her wonder if that was purely a workplace thing, or -

“Is she kidding?” Miller said, out of the corner of his mouth. He was nervy, walked around with his hand on the butt of his gun. Agnieszka was hoping he’d wash out soon. “Tell me she’s -” 

Heavy booted footsteps out in the corridor headed in their direction; both the guards straightened up as the Winter Soldier came through the door, ignoring them both, his narrowed eyes focusing on Agnieszka. 

“Where?” he said, and she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, stepping back as he stormed over to the corner bed. She took the opportunity to strip off her bloodstained gloves and finally scratch the tip of her goddamned nose before grabbing a fresh pair and a suture kit and edging a little closer to where the Soldier stood. 

“No,” he was saying, low and intent, his metal hand ringed around the patient’s wrist - only to restrain, barely touching the skin. “No, Clint, they’re fine.” 

“I gotta,” Barton slurred weakly, “Buck, you gotta let me -” 

But he was stilling, finally, relaxing back against the bed enough that the Soldier released his wrist and - with a careful, considering look at Agnieszka - placed his hand gently on Barton’s forearm instead, thumb moving slowly across the skin, metal plates catching on the hairs there. 

“We got ‘em all, I swear,” he said. “You saved the day.” And the little smile on his face - the barest release of tension - made her feel a little more kindly towards Barton, even if he did call her a devil lady and then try to sell her his soul. 

 

 


	106. Chapter 106

“Once again, I’ve been lured away by the promise of chocolate.” 

Bucky let out a long breath into the phone, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. 

“I’m  _sorry_ , Clint. Can we drop it now? I didn’t mean to imply -”

“Bucky, I -”

“- you were immature or anything, that wasn’t -” 

“No, Bucky -”

“-  _meant_  it, I just went with a dumb joke -”

“Fuck’s sake, Buck -” 

“- like an  _idiot.”_ He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you come home, now?” 

“No,” Clint said, and the sinking feeling in his stomach almost stopped him listening to the rest. “No, I’ve actually - there was this - it smelled  _so good_ , and -”

“You’re kidding me,” he said flatly. 

“Also hey, you’re on speaker,” Clint said, and Bucky sat upright on the couch. 

“Mr Barnes,” a voice said - an unfamiliar one, but there were a whole lot of people hated him that he’d never even met. 

“Walking dead guy,” he greeted back. “Do you know how much shit you’re in? You can’t just kidnap an Avenger and -” 

“Now now,” the voice cut across him, amused. “I cannot be said to have  _kidnapped_ something if it simply wandered into my van and asked for cookies, now can I?” 

“For  _fuck’s_ sake, Clint,” he mumbled. “Well he may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot, and you have no idea how much you’re goin’ to regret taking him.” 

“But how will you find me, Mr Barnes? I have -” 

“No no no,” Bucky said, his mouth curling a little, making sure the grin was audible in his voice. “ _I’m_  not gonna make you regret it. You free yet, sweetheart?” 

There was the distinctive sound of a chair breaking over someone’s head. Bucky grinned, and listened to the chaos. 


	107. Chapter 107

“Once again, I’ve been lured away by the promise of chocolate.” 

Bucky let out a long breath into the phone, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. 

“I’m  _sorry_ , Clint. Can we drop it now? I didn’t mean to imply -”

“Bucky, I -”

“- you were immature or anything, that wasn’t -” 

“No, Bucky -”

“-  _meant_  it, I just went with a dumb joke -”

“Fuck’s sake, Buck -” 

“- like an  _idiot.”_ He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you come home, now?” 

“No,” Clint said, and the sinking feeling in his stomach almost stopped him listening to the rest. “No, I’ve actually - there was this - it smelled  _so good_ , and -”

“You’re kidding me,” he said flatly. 

“Also hey, you’re on speaker,” Clint said, and Bucky sat upright on the couch. 

“Mr Barnes,” a voice said - an unfamiliar one, but there were a whole lot of people hated him that he’d never even met. 

“Walking dead guy,” he greeted back. “Do you know how much shit you’re in? You can’t just kidnap an Avenger and -” 

“Now now,” the voice cut across him, amused. “I cannot be said to have  _kidnapped_ something if it simply wandered into my van and asked for cookies, now can I?” 

“For  _fuck’s_ sake, Clint,” he mumbled. “Well he may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot, and you have no idea how much you’re goin’ to regret taking him.” 

“But how will you find me, Mr Barnes? I have -” 

“No no no,” Bucky said, his mouth curling a little, making sure the grin was audible in his voice. “ _I’m_  not gonna make you regret it. You free yet, sweetheart?” 

There was the distinctive sound of a chair breaking over someone’s head. Bucky grinned, and listened to the chaos. 


	108. Chapter 108

Clint didn’t move, leaning back against the front of the brightly lit 7-11 and taking an obnoxiously loud slurp of his slush. He didn’t even turn his head; the acid white lights would screw with his night-vision enough that he didn’t have a hope of seeing Bucky anyway. Vampires couldn’t hack sunlight, not incandescent storefronts, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they lurked. Drama queens. 

“My food decisions are none of your concern, asshole,” he said after a moment’s contemplation. “The garlic bread at Sal’s is a fucking delight.” 

Bucky growled softly in the darkness. First time Clint’d heard it - that time short, dark and red-eyed had saved his life by sucking it right out of others - he’d nearly pissed himself. Now he just knew Bucky was sulking. 

“Use your words,” he said, taking another too-big gulp of artificially purple ice. 

“Is this about feeding from you?” Bucky asked, through gritted teeth, which was a lot more impressive when they were so very pointy. 

“Without asking,” Clint said. “I had a headache for days!” 

“I only took enough to -” 

“Consent is sexy, asshole,” Clint said, sucking hard to try and shift a huge chunk of purple up the damned straw. 

“- to not die.” 

“Already dead,” Clint sing-songed. “No one gives me headaches but me. Aw, brain-freeze.”


	109. Chapter 109

“I look at you and I think, ‘sunshine. Literal sunshine.’ It’s annoying.” 

Clint snorted, kicking his heels against the side of the building, watching the moon rise gently over the dark streets. 

“Pretty sure from anyone else, that’d be a compliment,” he said, and he hated that there was a trace of hurt there, because Bucky picked up on weaknesses like sharks picked up on blood in the water. Come to think of it, he could probably do that, too. 

Clint sure as hell didn’t feel like sunshine. Clint didn’t get the chance to see much of it any more, and he’d laughed when the SHIELD medics had suggested vitamin D supplements, had suggested antidepressants, had suggested sleeping pills to make sure he could stay awake in the day. The bags under his eyes were almost big enough to hold all his issues, now. Or maybe - maybe they woulda been. If he hadn’t fallen in love with a fucking vampire. 

“So, what,” Clint continued, after the silence went on a little too long. “You look at me and you want to run away screaming?” 

Bucky let out a long breath. He did that, even though he didn’t need to breathe; some exasperation, he’d told Clint, once, was too ingrained to unlearn. He didn’t look at Clint, but his hand found Clint’s without a moment’s fumbling, cool fingers pressing between his own. 

“I want you more than anything I’ve wanted in the last hundred years,” Bucky said, and the noise Clint made was dumb and helpless. Bucky turned to look at him, then, and the little half-smile on his face showed fang, sure, but it was maybe the most human expression Clint’d ever seen him wear. 

“Shit,” he said, eloquent, punched out. 

“And I’m kinda afraid you’ll kill me,” Bucky said, and wove their fingers tighter, and didn’t let go. 


	110. Chapter 110

Clint plays with Bucky’s fingers, when they’re all curled up together like this. 

Clint’s taller, which - people make assumptions, which is a part of the future that Bucky has in no way grown accustomed to. He coulda done without knowing what people thought about their relationship; he’s nowhere near used to living his life so out loud. So Clint’s taller, but he likes to have Bucky behind him, surrounding him, all wrapped up tight. He likes to slide further down on the couch so he can rest his head back onto Bucky’s shoulder, so he has to stretch up if he wants to find skin. 

And then, once he’s all settled in there, Clint likes to play with Bucky’s fingers. Metal or real, that doesn’t matter to him - although it’d matter to Bucky’s therapist that that’s how he refers to them, probably. Clint likes to see how they articulate, push and pull at them absently, see how many ways he can make their hands fit together, how they line up palm to palm. 

Once in a while, when the mood takes him, Clint’ll pull Bucky’s hand up to lay a kiss in his palm. Maybe trace his tongue along the lines there. Maybe breathe against the fragile skin of his inner wrist. It’s weird ‘cos it doesn’t have to  _lead_  anywhere, not right away; Clint’s just gotta  _know_  things, sometimes, and sometimes that includes how Bucky’s calluses taste. 

It’s not Bucky’s  _favourite_  thing about Clint, but it’s up near the top of the list. He keeps one, it ain’t metaphorical, ‘cos he knows that sometimes Clint needs telling, and he’s never gonna let himself be lost for words. Once they start in on the whole love thing, once they acknowledge what this is - which, Bucky’s waiting on Clint, he’s ready any day now - he wants to know that he’s got reassurances right there in his back pocket, ready to go. 

Once Clint lets his hand go long enough to get to them, that is. 


	111. Chapter 111

Clint thinks the media would be more willing to accept it, if it was just him. He’s not really one of the more interesting Avengers, and the only tabloid fame he briefly got was a series of ‘what happened next’ pictures one time, because cameras are always there at his most dumbass. It’s fine, it works for him, it actively assists his job that no one can pick him out of a line-up. 

(Literally. This has happened.)

Obviously it wouldn’t be just him, that’s kinda the point, but - 

Bucky is kinda this bad-boy media darling, now. Clint absolutely gets it - stuff the guy into a tux and have him clench his jaw, and suddenly he’s melting panties at a radius of goddamn miles. Clint gets it on a visceral and soul-deep level, even if he thinks that waiting until he’s all primped and fancy is kinda missing the point. But because he’s so unearthly pretty, the media wants in on his life. The media wants to link him with other pretty people and speculate wildly.

Now one thing he will say is that they’ve accepted Bucky’s bisexuality with a little more ease than he would’ve expected. Obviously there’s the usual screaming from the right wing, and there was a while there where Steve was perpetually crazy-eyed, but this is a modern age and now they get to take pictures of him and speculate wildly about twice as many people as you’da thought. 

Not everyone, though. 

 So Bucky’s been linked with Tasha and Steve and Tony and even  _Sam_ , which was a hilarious morning around the breakfast table, Clint would willingly seed rumours just to see that level of meltdown again. Bucky’s been linked with soap stars and film stars and that guy in a band. Bucky’s been linked with the beautiful barista from the place on the corner, and his physio, and the dog-walker who comes to pick up Lucky sometimes, and Clint’s presence in the back of almost all of these pictures is just guys being pals. 

(Pals mostly don’t make him walk this funny; supersoldier stamina is a terrible privilege.)

They’ve ignored cheek kisses and hand holding and arms draped around each other, they took pictures of Bucky lying all sprawled with his head on Clint’s lap and wrote a dissertation about the sad loss of the touchy-feely friendship that was a part of life in the wars. 

Clint’s mostly fine with it, whatever, any day he doesn’t have to run away from the paparazzi generally falls on the side of good. He’s just kinda interested to see how they’re gonna react to the rings. 


	112. Chapter 112

Clint’s back hit the door and a second later Bucky slammed against him, taking his mouth with the kind of determined strength that could lead to a bloody nose or a bitten lip if the aim was just a fraction off - but that wasn’t who they were, was it? Clint kissed back with everything that was in him, lifted his hand to slide from the crook of Bucky’s jaw back to twine into his hair, tugging a little just to hear the way he couldn’t  _quite_  bite back his moan. 

“Shh,” Clint hissed, through his grin, ‘cos Steve and his giant supersoldier ears was gonna be meeting with some kinda higher-ups just outside this closet in next to no time, which was why they were in here, ‘cos Clint l- liked the way a little risk lit Bucky up like flash paper. 

“I’m gonna kill you,” Bucky murmured, barely above breathing, and Clint’d make time to be grateful for the work Tony’d put into his aids a little later, when the thought of him wouldn’t be a boner killer - when Bucky wasn’t laughing into his mouth, which had rapidly become something Clint would almost certainly break international laws for. 

“Gotta catch me first,” Clint said, and writhed for the door, lunging for the door handle and almost biting through his lip when Bucky’s hands caught his shoulders and shoved him back against the door again, pressing up against him this time all the way down, Bucky’s thigh pressing just exactly in the right place. 

“F-fuck,” Clint hissed out, a sigh escaping through the fricative, his hips pressing forward without any sorta conscious intent. “Fuck, guess I’m staying then.” 

“Guess you’d fuckin’ better,” Bucky said, intent, and then he leaned forward and mouthed at Clint’s neck for a second before biting down there, claiming, making Clint let out the sort of high-pitched noise that’d carry, that’d make Steve’s patriotic rhetoric stumble a little outside. 


	113. Chapter 113

Fuckin’ ‘old times’ sake’. 

Bucky folded five bucks into a paper dart and launched it at the juggler, who palmed it, pocketed it and flashed him a grin without once disrupting his act. A clown sidled up, lookin’ all hopeful, and Bucky glared her into submission. 

Steve was a manipulator and a liar, and for ‘old times’ sake’ Bucky had now been dragged to a ball game (where he was fuckin’ horrified by the price of a hot dog), to a movie theatre (where he was fuckin’ horrified by the price of popcorn), and now the Coney Island circus sideshow, where he had yet to be fuckin’ horrified but he was keeping out an eagle eye. 

He appreciated the effort. He wasn’t gonna say that he didn’t appreciate the effort, not when Stevie’d have every reason in the world to kick him to the kerb, where kerb in this case was some kinda high security prison. He just - the people were a challenge. The crowds and the noise and the constant disorienting motion, which Steve clearly thought he ought to love, only it  _wasn’t_ old times. No matter how much either of them might wish it to be. 

An acrobat dressed all in bright purple flipped from walking on his hands to his feet, his cheeks flushed and his hair all disordered like someone’d been running their fingers through it. 

“Seriously?” Steve said, next to Bucky, his jaw tightening, and the acrobat made a comically surprised face - guy shoulda been a clown, although the makeup woulda been kind of a shame with a face like that - and somehow managed to climb the nearest streetlight, perching on the crossbar as easy as if it was a park bench. 

Steve narrowed his eyes, scanning the crowd like he was looking for someone in particular, but Bucky was a little distracted watching the acrobat as he made a show out of it for some kids who were staring up at him wide-eyed. He made out like he couldn’t keep his balance, like he was gonna fall, and flipped so he was hanging from his knees, grinning right down into Bucky’s face. 

“Clint, get the hell down from there,” Steve bellowed, “I don’t need a damn babysitter!” 

Bucky glanced at the side of his face, startled, and then looked back up at the acrobat - Clint, apparently - with a little more consideration. Steve knew him - that was basically a stamp of approval, right? Besides, it wouldn’t be Coney Island if he didn’t come home with somethin’ pretty on his arm. For old times’ sake. 


	114. Chapter 114

Bucky just stretched out on his back in the middle of the apartment, no longer flinching at the patter of paws, the distant crashing of something else losing its fight with gravity combined with an overexcited fennec fox. Fuck it, it was Clint’s place anyway, and the likelihood it’d get into the side of the wardrobe that Bucky’d been sneakily taking over was, he figured, low. 

This week’s villain had been wearing an eye-searing combination of orange, red and pink, and Clint’d been the only one of them too busy criticising her fashion choices to get out of the way of the damned ray gun she’d been wielding. There’d been this moment - this heart-stopping, breath-stealing moment - where Bucky’d been sure that Clint was dead. That the asshole had been disintegrated before Bucky’d even got the chance to - before he’d even - 

Then Tasha had let out a stream of Russian that Bucky had understood more pf than he’d frankly wanted to, and rushed in to grab at the small wiggling lump caught up in Clint’s tac suit while Steve and Sam did their best to handcuff the woman with the gun. She’d tugged and unzipped and emerged, triumphant with what was, essentially, a rat with ears the size of its entire body. Tony had made a ridiculous cooing noise over comms, and Natasha had soundly cursed the thing out, and it was only because of the particular set of insults she was using that it sunk in to Bucky’s brain that this little creature was goddamn  _Clint_. 

He wasn’t sure how he’d volunteered to look after it. He figured he’d been the only one still spun all sideways; he clearly hadn’t been on the Avengers long enough to become accustomed to this kinda shit. They’d consulted with Thor, who’d consulted with a bunch of wise-looking Asgardian ladies, who’d determined that Clint was likely to turn back within anything from three hours to two days, depending on the degradation rate of the spell. So now Bucky was left to deal with a hell of an emotional upheaval  _and_  a tiny rodent thing that housed the consciousness of the guy he - 

Four tiny feet thumped onto Bucky’s chest, with the approximate weight and impact of a freaking feather. He refused to open his eyes, not even when it clambered up to curl into a tiny ball right under his chin. 

“I ain’t saying it when you’re this shape, asshole,” Bucky said, bringing up one hand to curl around its tiny fragile body, still feeling the echoes of his earlier terror shaking through him, shaking things loose that he hadn’t been ready to face. 


	115. Chapter 115

“Hey.” 

The word was quiet, low and with a little husk to it, but the room held the silence of just-fallen snow; there was no way he hadn’t heard. Bucky shifted up onto his elbow, the hiss of his skin against the sheet white noise like TV static. 

“Hey.” 

A soft grumble, this time. Bucky pulled at sheets until he found rumpled, sweat-damp blond hair, carefully sliding his fingers through it, putting it back into order behind the curve of purple that hugged his ear. 

“I like when you’re pre-verbal,” he said, leaning down to press his lips against the border line between stubble and soft skin. The noise this time was a gentle protest, and he nodded insistently, his nose tracing parallel lines on Clint’s cheek. “I like when you can’t remember the word for coffee but you still pour mine first.” 

This close, he could feel Clint’s shoulders hunching, a little, and he traced down the line of Clint’s jaw so he could breathe out just at the crook of his neck, giving him a better reason for the defensiveness. 

“I like when I pull on your sweatpants instead of mine. I like that I have to cuff them up, roll the waistband a little, maybe.” Clint curled his legs up a little and Bucky decided to take it as an invitation, curling in behind Clint, pressing a kiss to the shirt over his shoulder, feeling the slightest ease of him relaxing back. “I even like when Sam rags on me about it,” he said, “but if you tell him that I’ll kill you.” 

That earned a little huff of breath like a laugh. Felt like a damn trophy. 

“I like that you’re left with my sweatpants,” he said, sliding his metal hand - warmed with sleep until it was almost real - just under the fabric at Clint’s hip, curling jointed fingers against the skin there. In this half-asleep room, pressure was almost sensation, was almost touch. “I like the awkward bones of your ankles. I like the way your feet get cold and you stuff ‘em under the ass of whoever’s closest.” He tucked his face in close, smiled into the sleep-musty skin of Clint’s neck. “I like that it’s mostly me.” 

“‘kay,” Clint said, his voice a croak, ‘cos his dreams hadn’t been kind, “okay, you c’n stop now.” 

Bucky pressed a kiss to the closest skin. 

“Not ‘til you believe me,” he said. 


	116. Chapter 116

“I thought we weren’t doing gifts,” Clint said, and he looked - he looked kinda devastated, which was not at all what Bucky was going for today. He put down the dish on the commemorative award replica thing they’d once got for saving the city; they used it ‘cos neither of them had the first clue where to buy a trivet. 

“Didn’t we have that conversation?” Clint continued, tugging at his own hair the way he did when he was distressed, and Bucky hated that it was linked to such a shitty emotion because it made his biceps look hot as all hell. “Didn’t - I thought we agreed, did I fuck this up -?”

“Clint,” Bucky said, then tossed the oven glove in the direction of the sink and darted over to take Clint gently by the wrists, squeeze gently so Clint would stop spiralling and look at him. “Clint, sweetheart, breathe.” 

It took a second, but a few deep breaths and the sweep of Bucky’s thumbs across the thin skin that hid under Clint’s bracers, and he was breathing steady again, looking embarrassed and kinda miserable. Bucky wanted to kiss him. Bucky wasn’t sure that would help. 

“You  _know_  I’m not good at this,” Clint said. “I’m trying, but -” 

“You’re  _amazing_  at this,” Bucky said. “Hands down best relationship I’ve ever had in my life.”

“So how come I would swear we agreed no anniversary presents but you have a gift bulge in your pocket?” 

“It could be a knife bulge?” Bucky tried, and Clint gave him an unimpressed look. 

“Fuck you,” he said flatly. “That’s a knife bulge,  _that’s_  a knife bulge, that’s a gun bulge, this one,” he tapped the small of Bucky’s back, “I’m pretty sure is a garrote, which Steve is gonna be  _very_  disappointed about, and this is -” he smirked a little, and curled his hand, and Bucky couldn’t help arching his back just a little, “I dunno,  _some_  kinda unregistered weapon. But that is definitely a gift bulge -” he pulled a little back, and Bucky couldn’t help the soft disappointed noise in his throat - “and I thought we agreed.” 

“We agreed.” Bucky fumbled at his pocket, at the gift bulge, and pulled out a box that was small and square. “We agreed, but I just -” 

“Oh,” Clint said, soft as breathing. Took him a second to rally, to get his feet back under him, but when he did it was with a hell of a smile. “Best relationship you ever had, huh?” 

Bucky swallowed the stupid lump in his throat and flipped open the box. 

“Hands down,” he said. 


	117. Chapter 117

Clint has been around a while. 

Clint has done some stuff and seen some stuff and killed some stuff, and his entire being has grown weary of it; most days, Clint feels like he’s grown calluses on his soul. 

The world ain’t gentle, is the thing. It’s not rough, not deliberately - you don’t matter enough for it to be rough, but you don’t matter enough for it to be gentle with you, either. It pushes past you and knocks you aside; it doesn’t mean anything by it. 

All of the world, and time, too. 

Clint has been touched by easily a hundred hands, easily more. Clint’s old and tired and you gotta tone down the sensitive, you gotta do that or die from it. You can’t keep hurting the way that love hurts; you can’t keep hurting the way that life does. Sometimes your skin has gotta be armour. Sometimes your heart’s gotta stay inside a box. 

Clint’s skin is tired. Old. Worn. 

Clint’s not ready for how it feels when Bucky brushes his mouth against the side of his head, touches vulnerable new skin where hair used to be. 


	118. Chapter 118

“Even after such a long and gruelling fight, Clint Barton - the Avenger known as Hawkeye - has managed to keep his characteristic sense of humor intact. 

“You should see the other guy,” he told me, with a wink that was enough to set my nerves all a-flutter.” 

Clint groaned and let his head fall onto the table with a bang. Tony grinned and kept reading. 

“Close up, Hawkeye towers over the other Avengers; at 6′4′‘ he is taller than any except the Hulk, and bigger in every dimension than you’d think.” Tony leered at that, but Clint was too busy reaching for his aids to notice - Bucky touched the back of his hand, not making any move to physically stop him, just kinda giving a hint. Clint grabbed his finger and held onto it tightly, and Bucky wiggled it a little so he could rearrange them, hold Clint’s hand properly. 

“Born in Iowa, Barton is all-American beefsteak, with the sun-bleached hair and freckled tan of a man who’s not afraid of the ageing effects of spending too long in the sun. Sharp blue eyes are surrounded by fine lines - in his late thirties, Barton is among the older Avengers - and his careless stubble brings to mind cowboy films, old Hollywood, matinee idols. His muscles, though, are those of a working man, and this reporter would like to thank whoever designs those wonderful skintight costume for, as my editor would have it, ‘the gun show.’“ Tony made a show of flipping pages. “Jesus, Clint, this thing goes on for four pages. Did you lure this girl into an alleyway, blow her mind and break her heart?” 

“He ain’t you, Stark,” Bucky said, and his tone was low and lazy but his hand tightened a little around Clint’s, ‘cos the idea of Clint being with anyone else turned him a little Hulk green.

“Aaw, monogamy looks good on you, Sergeant Snowballs. I’ve heard tell it’s not exactly the Hollywood Heartthrob’s strong point, though.” 

“Fuck off, Tony,” Clint snapped out, sitting up, and Tony raised his hands, defensive. 

“I’m just saying,” he said, backing out. “Don’t blame me for your past misdemeanors.” 

Clint bit his lip and it was a little while before he looked at Bucky. He took the time to examine Clint’s hand, catalogue the new scar at the base of his thumb, make sure he knew it. 

“My history’s not great, with relationships,” he said, eventually. “Practice never exactly made perfect.” 

“Agree to disagree,” Bucky said, kissing the rough skin of Clint’s knuckles. “My heart’s sure as hell all a-flutter over you.” 


	119. Chapter 119

Steve folded himself into the seat next to Bucky, who was still - in spite of all of Steve’s interventions - wearing the faded purple hoodie with the ragged thumb holes, the one that Steve’s mom said made Bucky look like he was casing places. 

Still, he was  _here,_ he was in  _public_ , he was wearing an expression other than his usual scowl. He was also wearing his prosthetic, which Steve was trying not to react to, ‘cos the last thing they needed was for Bucky to get self-conscious, maybe quit wearing it out of spite. 

It was - it was progress, that was what it was, and it looked good on him. Hell, he looked like he’d even  _washed his hair_ , where Steve had started to think he was gonna have to ambush Bucky with the garden hose. 

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Bucky said, without looking away from the floor of the gym, and Steve followed his line of sight, picked out the guy in the purple shirt from the year above them, the one that was kind of a disaster area. The one Steve’d done his best to discourage, as the last thing, right now, that Bucky needed. 

The one that was standing straight and tall with a bow in his hands and a look of incredible focus on his face. The one Bucky was apparently having a little difficulty looking away from. 

Steve was okay with admitting his mistakes. 

“Happy looks good on you,” he said, reaching out sideways to ruffle Bucky’s hair. Bucky batted his hand away, scowling the way he used to - without the edge of anger and the tension of pain. Scowling like it was the only way he was avoiding a grin. 

“Fuck you, loser,” Bucky said, and Steve worried about retaliation for all of a second before Bucky’s intense stare snapped back to the floor of the gym, where the guy in the purple shirt was - 

“Holy  _shit_ ,” Steve said. “Oh. Wow. I had no idea Clint was so motivated.” 

“Not his fault you weren’t paying attention,” Bucky said, not even trying, this time, to hide his little grin. 


	120. Chapter 120

Bucky didn’t take out Jimmy MacGregor’s sister Essie because the guys said she was fast. He’d met her a couple times at the grocers, run into her when he and Jimmy used to hang out at the pool hall. He’d always liked the way she didn’t back down, the way her blue eyes sparked with temper when Jimmy tried to tell her what to do. He liked the way she tripped over herself a little, dancing, how she could laugh at herself; he liked the way her blonde hair got a little disarrayed. 

He liked the way she painted her lips all cherry red, and the way her mouth curled into a smile, the way you couldn’t help but think about - 

Maybe it was a little because the guys said she was fast. 

So it made no kinda sense that he’d spruced up all fine in his brand new uniform, that he’d taken her dancing and bought her something to eat, and that he’d escorted her home like a gentleman and hadn’t even leaned in for a kiss. 

Bucky scuffed along the back streets that would eventually lead him home, his hands tucked into his pockets and his thoughts just about a million miles away; he near enough jumped out of his skin when the guy called out to him from an alleyway. 

“You lost, sweetheart?” 

There was lazy amusement in the guy’s blue eyes, his slacks patched and his shirt worn, his blond hair all disarrayed. He was leaning back against the wall and his hips were a little tilted, and Bucky’s mouth was all of a sudden dry. 

“I know where I’m goin’,” he said, non-commital, and the guy gave him a long look, all the way from the polished boots on his feet to the new hat he’d worked hard at tilting to just the right degree. 

“A ways, I’m guessing,” the guy said, and there was something a little bitter in his smile. 

“Not signing up?” Bucky asked, and the guy snorted, looking up to meet his eyes from where he’d been staring at Bucky’s mouth. Bucky shifted his weight a little, hard-pressed not to loosen his collar, get a little air.  

“Not until they issue radio ears for the troops,” the guy said, shrugging. “Guess I’ve gotta do what I can here.” 

“Scrap iron in a little red wagon?” Bucky asked, and felt like an asshole for it immediately - just ‘cos he felt kinda easy with the guy already, didn’t mean he would understand Bucky like Steve. The guy kinda crowed with laughter, though, his blue eyes bright in the half-way dark. 

“Sure, let’s go with that, although I’m gonna paint my wagon purple.” He looked Bucky up and down again, then bit on his plush lower lip. “I was kinda thinking of a different way to serve my country, though,” he said, and beckoned Bucky closer with a jerk of his head. And his lips weren’t painted, but he had a hell of a smile curling his mouth, and Bucky couldn’t help but think about -


	121. Chapter 121

“Is there something about me,” Clint said, looking intently into Bucky’s eyes, “that just screams ‘hooker’?” 

Bucky couldn’t help the way his eyes dropped to take him in, bare feet to nobbled knees to the tight-fitting boxer-briefs that he’d clearly stolen from  _someone, ‘_ cos you’d have to pry Clint’s purple wash-faded boxers outta his cold dead hands. His eyes lingered a little on the lines that cut from Clint’s hips down to where they disappeared under the waistband; he had a hard time moving on from his goddamned abs, too. 

“I mean, yeah,” he said, “a little.” He blinked and managed to focus back on Clint’s face, the pleased little smile he wore there. “Why the hell - ?”

He regretted asking. He’d known he was gonna regret asking, and here he was, barely a minute later, regretting. 

“ _Winterhawk_ ,” Tony was saying. “No way anything with Clint in gets a cool name like  _Winterhawk_ , what the hell, I demand a recount.” 

“Why?” Clint asked, his lips curling up at the corner, “what’s your most popular one? Todey?” 

“Our love is too epic and glorious for amphibians!” 

“So… Stucky is…” Steve said, scrolling with a sort of horrified fascination. He looked up and caught Bucky’s eye and they both made faces because… ugh. It would be like neckin’ with your brother. 

“ _Clucky!”_ Tony crowed. “That’s the one, that’s their name, no question.” 

“Wait,” Steve said slowly. “What the hell is Stark Spangled Banner, Tony, and why do you have it bookmarked?” 

The furore kinda died down after that. The internet was a weird place, they all knew that going in, and it was no stranger than the conspiracy theories about Tony’s place in the Illuminati. The only way it lived on was Tony snickering occasionally and clucking like a chicken whenever he saw Bucky around Clint. 

He probably didn’t mean it to hit as hard as it did. 

It took a few weeks, maybe; it took Clint stealing underwear from someone with far better taste than him, again. It took Clint leaning in close and Tony making his absurd goddamn barnyard noises for Bucky to scowl, resolute. 

“You’re right,” he said, “but I’m done being a goddamn chicken.” Clint’s mouth dropped open against his, softened into an invitation, and it took practically nothing to coax him into Bucky’s lap, pushing in close in a way that was in no way appropriate for the kitchen. 

“Holy shit,” he heard someone say in the background, “Winterhawk is  _canon_!”


	122. Chapter 122

Clint debates running back down the stairs again. He also considers throwing himself out the window - the fire escape has just been checked, it’s up to code, he’s sure he could angle right to hit it from here.

“Don’t,” Bucky says, his knees hitched up and his head tipped forward, leaning with his back against Clint’s front door, “even think about it.”

Clint lets out a breath and - rather than enclose this within four walls, where things will hurt too much to see it through - he slumps down beside him, doing his best to avoid physical contact and failing so, so hard.

“Look,” he says, “I’m sorry -“

“Is this for my own good?” Bucky’s voice is low and flat and Clint kinda hates when it goes like that. “You doing this for me? ‘Cos I’d sooner take a kick in the teeth, if you’re offering.”

Clint shifts his weight a little forwards, draped his arms across his knees. Examines the way the light glints off the golden hairs there in uneven pulses, ‘Cos the light up here is one of half a hundred things he hasn’t quite managed to fix.

“In the long run -“

“Tell me you want me gone.” Bucky’s looking at him, he can feel it, but the weight of his entire romantic history is pushing his head down into his chest.

“I don’t -“

“Tell me, right now, that you want me gone and I’ll leave.”

“Aw, shit,” Clint says, all uneven, and buries his face in his hands.  _Why won’t you let me ruin it,_  he wants to ask,  _like everyone always has?_

Working for things sucks. Working for things is hard and exhausting and if it still doesn’t work it’s your fault, not just the whims of the fuckin’ universe. And this is - Bucky is -

Clint cannot bear to put his heart into this and have it not work out.

“I’m scared outta my goddamn mind,” he says, muffled, and Bucky reaches over to spread one hand across the top of his head, rocking him back and forth just a little.

“I want to believe this is something worth being brave for,” he says, and Clint grabs his hand before he can move it away.


	123. Chapter 123

“You may now kiss the - uh -”

It’s the first time Steve has looked out of his element all damned day. He’s been on top of everything, making sure things are perfect, and it’s like he absorbed all the wedding nerves that Bucky could possibly have. He’s been yelling and directing and arranging and berating and all Bucky has been left with is a sense of bone-deep certainty and happiness like an ocean.

Clint is still holding onto his hands, thumb and forefinger resting on the ring like he needs the cool solidity of it to believe this is real. He’s biting his lip and his eyes are dancing and he’s gonna go any second, Bucky can see it in all the lines of him.

Bucky arches an eyebrow at Steve, who pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out this exasperated huff of air that can somehow still be heard over Clint’s helpless laughing, and it’s Bucky’s favourite photograph of the whole wedding, this moment here, it’s the one that stays on the mantel through all the years that are waiting for them.

Plus the first words said to them as an officially married couple are from Stevie, exasperated.

“Aw, fuck you guys,” he says, and he’s laughing around and through it, and it couldn’t be more perfect.


	124. Chapter 124

Clint blinked open gritty eyes, the familiar bland white ceiling and gentle lighting telling him immediately that something hadn’t gone exactly to the plan. Give him a few minutes and he’d probably be able to work out which plan that was, too. His head was pounding, a hot dull throb that was making his vision fade rhythmically to red at the edges, and he wasn’t entirely convinced he was gonna be able to move it any time soon. 

A hard plastic case was tapped insistently against his hand, and Clint could feel the sad noise he made in his throat. He took the aids and carefully fitted them, adjusting the volume until things were bearable again. 

“Hey,” a voice close by said. “It’s good to see you back amongst the living. How’re you feeling?” 

“Little like I’m gonna throw up my soul,” he said, and there was a soft snort from the corner of the room. 

“You don’t have one,” she said - Natasha, that was Natasha, that one he knew about as well as he knew his own. “I won it off you in a game of cards.” 

“Hey,” Clint protested, something in his face deeply unhappy with the smile he tried to wear, “it was that or my underwear,” he said, “and neither of us wanted that.” 

“That is a story Bucky’s gonna want to hear.” It was the man again, the one that was kinda familiar, even if Clint couldn’t place his voice right now. “So you should definitely tell me before he comes back in the room so I can hold it over him, exchange it for Cap’s secrets.” 

“Tony -” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Bucky is loyal as Clint’s dumb dog -” 

 _Since when_ , Clint thought,  _do I have a dog?_  He lifted a hand to rub at the skin between his eyes, hoping that maybe pressure would alleviate the pain there, and then stared fixedly at the glint of gold on the finger of his left hand. 

“Er, Nat?” he said, his voice a little higher than his headache was comfortable with, “who the hell is Bucky?” 


	125. Chapter 125

_Brightly coloured breakfast cereal oughtta be the worst thing about the future._

Bucky still has a notebook. It’s not so much for remembering as it used to be, or at least it doesn’t have such a death grip on the slender threads he knows. It’s more for thoughts now. Things he doesn’t say. Things he wants to hold onto ‘cos they make him happy, rather than ‘cos he’s building himself up in a spider scratch sketch. 

_It’s got some stiff competition, sure - what the fuck ever happened to bananas? - but the weird feeling and the buzzing sweetness and the energy rush of it all kinda makes me wanna spew._

So far, Steve’s respected his privacy with it, which is a new and improved version of the Stevie he used to know. Bucky figures it’s a holdover from the fact that he didn’t get to have any secrets for a while there - didn’t even know the things that everybody else does - so Steve’s letting him have this. He’s kinda curious how long it’s gonna last. No one’s mentioned it, and no one tries to read over his shoulder when he’s writing in it, and he actually saw Clint pin Tony’s sleeve to the wall with a beautifully thrown kitchen knife when the guy had tried to steal a look. 

_Thing is, though -_

Gratitude is the least complicated of the emotions Bucky’s carrying when it comes to Clint Barton. He’s a knife-sharp dumbass with a movie star’s looks and a ragamuffin grin. He’s competitive and unlucky and arrogant and self-loathing, and Bucky wants to worm his way into the gaps left by his contradictions, make a home for himself there. 

It’s a lot. It’s a weird feeling, a buzzing sweetness that feels like adrenaline and euphoria and fear all wrapped up. It’s a bigger energy rush than the coffee, seeing Clint in the mornings, watching him shuffle over to pour himself cereal, sleep-flushed and soft. 

_Thing is, I love the way it makes you smile._


	126. Chapter 126

“… Barnes is on some very heavy medication, as his increased metabolism makes sedation a - if you’ll pardon the parlance - bitch. However the operation went very well, and he is ready for visitors.”

“Clint,” Steve said, instantly, and gestured towards the door, which was - which was crazy, there was no way he got to take precedence here.

“Don’t you wanna - ?”

“He’d kill me if I did,” Steve said, with one of those smiles that reminded you that he was a person, underneath it all.

“That ain’t true,” Clint insisted, and Steve looked at him consideringly for a moment, then shrugged.

“Whatever you say. Who says I wanna deal with that asshole on painkillers, anyway?”

Clint stuck his head around the door, knocking lightly, and Bucky whipped his head around to glare.

“Where’s my - “ he snarled, and then a slow smile dawned, easing up into blinding. “Oh. Hey, baby.”

Clint eeled around the door and waved an awkward hand, looking behind to make sure no one else had snuck in, ‘Cos this whole thing was kinda new, and he hadn’t expected pet names.

“How you feelin’, Buck?” He asked, and then bowed to the demanding hand and crossed the small room, getting close enough that Bucky could take his careful time winding their fingers together.

“Better now you’re here,” he said, sunrise slow and easy, and if he wasn’t exaggerating - he had to be exaggerating, right? - Clint kinda knew what he meant.


	127. Chapter 127

Most people’s soulmarks are pretty little things, easily hidden. They sell bands for ‘em, high class designer bullshit and cheap crap on street corners. Not everyone has a soulmark, so they say, but practically everyone’s got a band around their wrist. Some people wear a couple of ‘em, wear a smug smile too, ‘cos it says a lot about their connection that their soulmark presented so big. 

There are blogs dedicated to soulmark slips. There are injunctions against said blogs. There are daring photos of celebrities exposing just the barest glimpse of their soulmark, and prudish news articles deriding the loose morals of the youth of today. 

The way Clint’s heard it, soulmarks don’t match exactly, that’s not the point of them. Way he’s heard it, there’s - resonance. They make sense together. Clint would like to know what the hell kind of reality he’s living, what the hell kinda soulmate he can possibly have that’d make sense of his mark. 

He’s leaned into it. Shaved the sides of his head, wears black, got a leather jacket. You go that hard for the bad boy look and somehow even archery becomes something cool about you, rather than some idiot who peaked at the palaeolithic. Fuck it, it does good things for his arms, and he wears sleeveless shirts in public and revels in the horrified glances. Clint’s been told multiple times that he should keep it under wraps, that he ought to wear long sleeves, that he ought to think of the children, ‘cos Clint doesn’t have a soulmark. Clint has a whole soul _sleeve_. 

It’s beautiful, and it’s all encompassing, and it’s nothing he chose; it’s changed his life and made him who he is, and he can only imagine the kind of earth shaking, life changing effect his soulmate is gonna have on him - if he could only find the guy. 

You’d think it’d be easy to work out who the fuck his other half is, with a mark like that. You’d think he wouldn’t have to forge through the world falling into one disastrous love affair after another. But he’s into his thirties before he feels that soul-deep shift, when he looks at someone, the first time he sees the guy with the metal arm. 


	128. Chapter 128

James opened the door to his rooms, resisting the urge to slam it behind him by only the very barest of margins. He wasn’t able to prevent himself from slumping against it, pulling the tie from his hair and clenching his fist around the dark strands. If Steven introduced him to one more raging bore he would snap and kill someone - or perhaps enter some kind of dissociative fugue. He wondered if the two need be mutually exclusive. 

“You look like a scolded dog.” 

The voice startled him, a leap in his stomach like the very best of surprises, effervescence sparkling through him like a continental wine. He held himself still until he could react in a rational manner, pushing himself upright before opening his eyes, as the height difference was difficult enough without exacerbating it. 

(Difficult in that it was difficult to dismiss the thought from his head - Clint leaning over him, bracketing him in, the strain he always felt in his neck as he tilted up to meet his kiss. Difficult in working out the positions they might take when they fucked, difficult in that James could no longer look at the mounting step without blushing.) 

“What in hell’s name are you doing in my rooms?” he asked, not managing quite the tone he had intended, for the peers who sounded so peremptory rarely, if ever, smiled. 

“Natasha thought you could use a valet,” Clint said, “what with all the guests. Said I wouldn’t mind providing the personal attentions.” 

It was said with a leer so comically exaggerated that James wanted to laugh - that James wanted to push Clint down on his sheets and kiss him the way he shouldn’t want to, slow and tender and full of all the meaning he wasn’t allowed to have. 


	129. Chapter 129

It takes him a while, but eventually he allows himself to trust this. Clint, and Lucky, and a scuffed old building in Bed-Stuy, and the place he’s existing enough to take up there. He doesn’t flinch when the neighbours say hey, any more, and he’s starting to use a couple of their names. He has a favourite coffee shop. He has a  _usual_. It’s one of the scariest things he’s ever done. 

He pulls on a hooded sweater that won’t hold up against anything but the weather, shoves his feet into sneakers that probably won’t stay on if he runs. He pulls the leash off the hook he put up by the door and almost trips over the damned dog when he turns back around, his big dumb furry face grinning fit to bust. 

“Taking Lucky out!” he yells, but odds are pretty good that Clint’s aids are still on the bedside milk crate, odds are good Clint’s still tucked up, snuggled in, asleep. 

They lope down the stairs together and he notes where the carpet is pulling away from the treads. The tiled floor by the door is a little slippery, and mats shoot back up to the top of the to-buy list, just as soon as he’s got the cash. 

Outside there’s a fine mist hanging in the dawn-brightening air, the kinda rain you have to participate in before it’ll deign to get you wet. Bucky runs a hand through his hair and almost loses hold of Lucky when the dog lets out a sharp bark and tugs at the leash, pulling Bucky unerringly across a street and into an alleyway, dark and narrow and cold. There’s trash piled up in a corner back there, mostly sagging cardboard and a few old cans. Lucky shoves his nose right in there and then backs off, yipping again and looking at Bucky likes he wants somethin’. 

There’s a small movement, and Lucky lies down, putting his nose on his paw and watching the pile of trash avidly, making himself small. Bucky stays quiet, curious now, and his curiosity is rewarded a moment later when a small black nose quests at the air, wary and reluctant and emerging by degrees. 

The kitten is tiny and underfed and scrappy as hell when Bucky tries to grab it. Lucky, he waits careful and silent, making no moves that ain’t welcome. He’s five times the size of terrified kitten but he makes himself smaller, makes himself quiet, stays still and patient just like, Bucky realises, he’s learned. 

Bucky dials his phone with a gently bleeding hand, the tiny angry murder kitten tucked up tight inside his sweater and just learning how to purr, Lucky pushing his head up against gently moving metal. 

“Hey,” he says when Clint answers, “I love you,” like he’s learned.


	130. Chapter 130

“What the hell are you wearing?”

Clint flushed bright pink, tugging awkwardly at the inexpertly tied necktie that looked - to Bucky’s admittedly inexperienced eye -  _exceedingly_  expensive. One of those classy ones with a subtle sheen and almost invisible stripes. His suit was gray and classy and cut to make him look classy too - it somehow made him look a little smaller, a little leaner, like it’d be a surprise when he got up close and filled your world. 

Bucky felt kinda weird in his ragged jeans and washed-thin henley, even though that was what he wear every damned day. Honestly, he’d been expecting Clint to show up in sweatpants with a hole in the crotch, so - 

“Who are you,” he asked, “and what did you do with my boyfriend?” 

Clint looked kinda miserable, now, and that wasn’t Bucky’s intention, but he didn’t recognise this guy. There were traces around the edges of him - he hadn’t managed to do anything to tame his hair, he had an angry red burn across the base of his thumb, right above where the fancy cuff-link sat - and Bucky wanted to strip him back to how he knew him. Wanted to pull him close and rumple that fancy shirt and have him panting and open mouthed and dazed. 

“My friend Kate said - ” Clint rubbed the back of his neck, awkward and uncomfortable, familiar in the awful way that his expressions were, sometimes. “I never did the meet the parents thing before, I don’t -” 

“You did this for Steve?” 

Clint gave him one of those rueful grins, the ones that attempted to apologise to the universe for existing in it, and Bucky hated that he’d been the one to put it there. 

“He’s important to you,” he said simply. “I want him to like me, if I’m gonna get to stick around.” 

Bucky finally did what he shoulda done when he first opened his front door. He stepped forward and took Clint’s hand in both of his, tugged him down enough that he could lay one on him, deep enough and long enough that Clint was a little breathless when Bucky let him pull away. 

“Steve’s gonna love you,” he said, quiet and intent. “Hell, Steve already loves you, ‘cos he sees how happy you make me.” He pulled Clint close again, kissed him slow and deep and filthy, biting down on his lower lip. “More important?” he murmured, close and intimate, “Steve ain’t gonna be here for another hour, and I got  _plans_  for you in that suit.” 


	131. Chapter 131

The night is endless, and the shadows have teeth. 

Steve is sleeping the sleep of the morally righteous, and the morally righteous snore loud enough to shatter eardrums, so Bucky figures it won’t disturb him if he gives up on his bed. He doesn’t like the way the light delineates everything so sharply, though, so different from the way things look in the day. He’s only just getting used to that, let alone whatever the hell this is, so he does what a Barnes always does when things get awkward; he decides to clean the hell out of this place. 

It’s unfortunate that there’s only so much he can do. Bucky’s a black cloud of useless right now, an inarticulate fog in the corner of the room that only occasionally forces himself into the shape of a man; Steve is a sunshine child and keeps his place a given value of spotless. Lax compared to the army, maybe, but neat enough there’s only so much Bucky can pick up, and he doesn’t want to run the vacuum cleaner ‘cos Steve might sleep like the dead but there’re neighbours he doesn’t wanna piss off. 

The solution seems to be laundry; it’s probably safer to venture down into the basement for the first time when there’s no one around, besides. Bucky gathers up a bag full of boxers and shirts, reluctantly strips off the hooded sweater that just about gives him enough protection to venture out into the world. Steve’ll be pleased; it’s just about ready to take on independent life, at this point. 

It’s a weird thing that basements, no matter how well designed or maintained, are inherently creepy things. This one doesn’t make any effort at pretending it’s something it’s not, no fancy cladding or pretty interchangeable prints. There’s bare brick and linoleum, but the place is free of damp, and the air in the laundry room is warm and kinda pleasant-smelling. 

In the corner, there’s the gentle swish of an unattended machine, so Bucky takes the one furthest away from it, loads everything in without separating and then realises he forgot to bring down any goddamn detergent. He swears, under his breath, and nearly jumps out of his damned skin when someone clears their throat from across the room. 

“Wanna borrow some soap?” 

It’s a friendly kinda voice, a little scratchy with sleep, and Bucky hunches his shoulders and takes a deep breath before turning around, then nearly swallows his goddamn tongue. 

Tall, blond, and ripped as hell, and Bucky can tell this because the guy is wearing nothing but a pair of sagging boxers with a hole at the waistband and a pair of handcuffs dangling from one wrist. 

“Laundry day,” the guy says with a shrug, nearly smacking himself in the face with the handcuff when he reaches up to run a hand through his hair. 


	132. Chapter 132

“The doctor said all of my bleeding is internal. That’s where the blood is supposed to be!”

It’s probably weird that Bucky gets a little thrill just from hearing the guy’s voice, warm and mid-range and kinda scratchy, but he’s been waiting for the guy to wake up for days now. He’s supposed to find out what he knows before killing him, so the fact that he fell out a window and onto a parked car before Bucky even got  _near_  him was all kinds of inconvenient. 

Also - and he’s been doing his best to repress his thought, but he’s not having all that much success - he has a face that’s kinda beautiful in the lines of it, only it doesn’t quite suit being slack with sleep. Bucky wants to see him smilin’. 

(Bucky sometimes thinks he’s in the wrong line of work.)

He’s only ever showed up in the dark, before now, or as dark as a hospital ever gets, dimly lit and mostly empty and filled with soft sounds of sleep and the occasional noise of pain. Today he’s in green scrubs and a surgical mask, hair tied back in a clumsy half-tail, ‘cos he’d kinda wanted to see the guy’s smile lines in the sun. 

He’s aware how unhealthy this is. He’s not sure what to do about it. 

“Y’know,” a young woman’s voice, filled with fond exasperation, “no one’d blame me for killing you.” 

A wash of red rage surges through him and he breathes through it, well used to pushing down every inconvenient thought. 

“ _Dibs_ ,” he whispers instead, ducks his head and walks on by. 


	133. Chapter 133

“Remind me why I can’t kill the carolers?” Bucky said, and carefully folded his hand into a finger gun, picking off the big one with the piercingly nasal voice just to see the look on Steve’s face. 

“It’s once a year, Buck,” Steve said, tired and wearing a little thin on patience. “I realise that this is our busiest period, but -”

“Once a year?” Bucky turned to stare at him incredulously. “Once a  _year_? Tell that to one of the rookie elves, Steve. Tell that to someone down in packing who’s only been doing this since the freakin’ Victorians, okay, don’t try to sell me on this shit. We used to work Twelve Days.  _Twelve freaking days_ , okay, and now I swear I saw someone putting up some mistletoe before goddamn  _Thanksgiving_.” 

Steve slumped a little, the bell on the end of his hat drooping. 

“What happened to your holiday spirit, Buck?” he asked, plaintive. Bucky shrugged the question off. Everyone knew what’d happened to him in the land of Hallowe’en, or knew as much as he was willing to talk about in a place so relentlessly cheerful as Christmas town. It was what it was. Every Christmas needed its grinch. 

A loud and kinda tuneless voice came from outside, and Steve winced preemptively; he knew Bucky’s rants word for word by now, and he disapproved of almost all of the language. 

“DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH,” someone sang, and Bucky could feel his cheeks glowing the ruddy kinda colour that came natural to all the other elves. “MY BALLS AT CHRISTMAS ARE TINGLING -” 

“What in the jingle  _bells_ ,” Steve swore, leaning out of the window, appalled. 

“DING DONG VERILY YOUR THIGHS -”

“Is that one of the  _cupids?”_  

Bucky felt his heart grow. When he saw Clint’s tiny outfit, even in the Christmas snow, it wasn’t the only damned thing, either. 


	134. Chapter 134

Brooklyn seems different tonight. It’s not entirely ‘cos of the flickering orange pumpkin light, although that sure as hell puts a spin on the night; it’s more like he’s seeing it through different eyes. It’s dumb to think this way, but Clint is young and he’s - somehow, in the five hours since nightfall - in love. 

It’s usually the neon that catches the eye - 7-elevens, and gas stations, and the shitty bodega on the corner of his street. Tonight it’s like all the buildings are limned in moonlight, and he never took so much notice of how long everything’s been around. He feels young and temporary and only halfway here, and practically the only thing that seems real are the cool fingers woven between his. 

Neither of them wore a costume tonight, but that wasn’t what caught Clint’s eye. Pale skin, stormy eyes, dark hair that tumbled into ‘em, a little cleft in his chin and a mouth that was made for smiling. He was all Clint could see, and somehow - impossibly - that went both ways, his beautiful curving smile saved for when he was looking into Clint’s eyes. 

He’s not sure he remembers where they’ve been - he’s not sure it matters. He remembers cool fingers cupping his jaw. He remembers how kissing him for the first time felt like coming up for air. He remembers a clock somewhere, striking midnight, and how grateful he’d been that nothing’d changed. 

“D’you believe in ghosts?” 

Clint smiles a little, lifts their joined hands, presses his mouth to fingers that’re fading a little where the sunlight shines through them. 

“Don’t think you want me to answer that question, Buck,” he says. 


	135. Chapter 135

If there’s anything in his goddamn life that Bucky hates, it’s his hair. Too hot in the summer, too rain-logged in the winter, a pain in the ass to tie back when it keeps getting caught between metal plates… and it’s just. Greasy. All the goddamn time. 

If there was one advantage to his time in Hydra, if there was one thing out of that whole colossal clusterfuck that somehow worked to his advantage, it was that they had a vested interest in keeping him scrupulously clean. They didn’t bother cutting his hair, maybe, but they hosed him down and occasionally shampooed him. Like a pet. 

No. There was no good there. 

He’s himself again now, though. He’s able to make his own choices. And the one that’d be best for his mental health is probably the one that involves picking up the Pantene that his hand is hovering over, but - 

It’s so long since he’s had hope. So he ignores the neon sticky note stuck to the brim of his cap,  _wash me :D?_ in Steve’s pretty handwriting, just rips it off and shoves the cap on his head. 

Steve sighs when he sees him, noting not just the cap, but also the layers, the long sleeves, the way they’re pulled down over his hands. He has tried to reassure Bucky a hundred times, though, and Bucky just ducks his head and tells him to get it over with, introduce him to the team so he can go back to fuckin’ bed. 

They’re all kinda sweet, though. Big smiles and shaken hands, PR professionalism down to an art, and it’s like there’s cameras in the corners as they introduce themselves to him, 2D smiles and empty platitudes. He escapes to the kitchen as soon as he can manage, bracing himself on the countertop and letting his head drop forward. 

“Hey, wanna get your long greasy hair outta my coffee?” 

Bucky shoves himself upright and spins on his heel, heart in his mouth and balance in the toilet, stumbling a little as he looks at the guy who walked in - blond, tall, rumpled, clearly not dressed for company. He’s got the arms for epic hugs, and a mouth made for kissin’, and he’s the reason that Bucky hasn’t washed his hair in seventy goddamn years - 

“It’s  _you_ ,” he snarls, and the guy flinches back, turns on his heel and hoofs it outta the kitchen, Bucky hot on his heels. 

(Clint hadn’t expected his words to be said quite like that but… well, his life? On reflection, it checks out.)


	136. Chapter 136

The darkness went on forever. 

Clint had never got how time and space were both dimensions, before, how they were different but somehow the same. He hadn’t got it until the darkness went on forever and the darkness went - on - forever, forward and backward and left and right and day after day and night after night. There was no way to tell where an end was, or even if there  _was_  an end.

He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t  _wanted_  this. He’d figured for certain death, not this endlessness of uncertainty that wound tighter and tighter in his chest. 

He maybe would’ve gone mad if he’d been part of the darkness too. If he couldn’t look down and see his hands, couldn’t feel the comforting weight of his quiver on his back. He’d fired one arrow, just to see, but it’d been quickly swallowed up by the inky nothing that was all there wasn’t in this place, and no amount of walking in what might’ve been that direction ever found it for him again. 

He hoped he wasn’t going mad yet. He kinda thought that madness would be a relief, when he finally got there. 

There was nothing to differentiate the  _before_  from the  _after_  save for the circle of pale blue light like the one in Tony’s chest. It appeared in mid-air, and it was impossible to calculate difference but it didn’t look too far off. Clint stumbled to his feet - hadn’t realised he wasn’t on them - and hoped like hell he hadn’t arrived at madness, early and without ceremony, too short a goddamn trip. 

The circle of light hung there for a moment, lured him forward, then spun in place with a sound like the crackle of static from cheap motel sheets. He ducked and prepared to run - to and from where was an impossible question to answer - but the light cracked open before he could move his leaden feet, and the battered figure that fell through it froze them to the floor. 

“ _Bucky?”_

Bucky whirled to face him, darted forward, led with his fuckin’  _fist_. If any of the darkness could be called a floor Clint was looking up from it, up at the best sight he ever saw. 

“‘Tell Bucky I love him’?” Bucky snarled, furious and beautiful and some kinda impossible dream - or Clint’d think he was if he couldn’t taste copper, if his back teeth didn’t feel more than a little loose. “ _That’s_  how you choose to fuckin’ tell me? I should kick your fuckin’ ass, you inconsiderate fuck.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and “pretty sure I’d deserve it,” but that just seemed to make Bucky madder, his lips getting harder to read the less he moved his jaw. He looked back at whatever kinda portal it was that he came through, limned in light like he was some kinda angelic, and then he hauled Clint upright by his belt loops and kicked his ass through the portal to home. 


	137. Chapter 137

There’s a gust of cold air as the blanket is lifted, and Clint hunches in on himself, doesn’t uncoil either when the mattress jostles with the weight of another body.

There’s nothing in his head but apologies, and he knows those are tiring to hear. Not for anything in particular - maybe that he exists, and he can’t even do that right. He doesn’t have to wait until he fucks up to feel the need to apologise, ‘cos he’s aware by now that the fucking up is inevitable. That the apology, sooner or later, will be justified.

Clint bites his tongue.

The hand on his hip is cold even through his shirt, and it feels tentative, and he wants to apologise for that, too. He considers not moving - that would be an apology too, pretending like he’s asleep so Bucky doesn’t have to waste his effort - but he inches backwards instead, 'cos he’s weak and he can’t bear it.

The hand curls cool across his belly, and Bucky’s so warm against his back, and Clint can’t breathe right around the rock that’s set up home in his chest but he wants every breath to smell this familiar and good. The tip of Bucky’s cold nose traces down the line of his neck and some of the fuckin’ awful spills out of Clint’s eyes in scalding traces.

“Tell me to fuck off,” Bucky murmurs, “and I’ll be gone, but I ain’t goin’ anywhere just 'cos your brain’s decided you don’t deserve me here.”

That’s the first time Clint says it. Not the Big Three, 'cos he doesn’t deserve that yet, and Bucky hasn’t done anything bad enough to hear that kinda burden from Clint, but one word, soft and thin and the barest tether, the barest plea.

“Stay?”


	138. Chapter 138

There was a ball of dizziness wrapped around the base of Bucky’s spine, and his heart had left his chest - leaving a sucking, howling emptiness behind - and was beating in the ends of his fingers, even the ones he didn’t have. Everything that was him had withdrawn a little behind his eyes until there was nothing he could do - no way he could interact - and there was so very much world that could happen to him. 

 _Breathe_ , he told himself, trying to get it to sound like Steve’s voice in his head,  _keep breathing_ , but his brain always talked to him like he was an idiot, and Steve didn’t do that any more. He missed it - not ‘cos of the idiot thing, but for the edge of fondness that limned the edges of it. His brain sure as hell didn’t have that. 

The soft faded brown of Clint’s couch was trying to swallow him and he bent forward over his knees. Squeezed his lungs a little smaller, less capacity to fill, and this way he felt like a smaller target. Couldn’t be seen from the windows, maybe. 

It was the worst of it, how unfocused it was. There was nothing that could be pointed to and fixed on as a reason, a fear, a decisive outline of what the hell had him so scared. The physical symptoms came first and the rationalisation came later, until he was jumping at the hint of his own shadow. 

 _Breathe_ , he told himself, and someone else told him too, and that instruction was a little easier to follow with the window that’d been shoved open, a whisper of cold air reminding him the shape of his face, the limits of his skin. 

“Breathe, Buck,” a voice told him, and it was all fondness and no idiot - or… no. It was all of it the particular shade of idiot he’d learned to love. “I’ve got you.” 

Lucky’s warm weight curled up at his feet as he looked up at Clint’s gentle face, felt himself settle back into his head a little as a tongue lapped at his fingers and chased his heart back into his chest. 


	139. Chapter 139

Clint hasn’t put a shirt on in  _three goddamn days_. Bucky’s halfway convinced that he’s gonna die. 

He’s actually got the point that he has suggested they go stay in the tower, where there’s air conditioning, for a few days. Where  _Sam and Tony live_. That is how bad it’s fuckin’ gotten. 

Bucky’s not actually sure he could tell you how he ended up living in Clint’s place in Bedford Stuyvesant. It’s one of those things that made perfect sense after nightmares and over Mario Kart, and has somehow continued to be a good idea when they’d actually gone ahead and done it. 

Clint is an undemanding roommate, provided you can lower your standards of cleanliness and order to match, and Lucky’s a freaking dream. Lucky has actually woken him out of a couple of his dreams - the bad ones, the ones that stop him sleeping for nights after - and if everything with Clint goes south he’s stealing the damned dog. 

But seriously, living with Clint is good enough that Bucky’s willing to work on ignoring the giant sized  _thing_  he’s developed for the guy. It’s the worst idea, he knows this, his therapist knows it, he’s not ready for the kind of upheavals that come with relationships; his friendship with Clint is so goddamn  _easy_. He’s starting to feel like he needs him to be there. Like he’d leave part of himself behind if he moved away. So it’d be the worst idea to pin him up against the counter there, map the line of his collarbone with his lips, turn this into something important enough that he could fuck it up. 

He’s taking a lot of frigid fuckin’ showers. 

The front door rattles open and Bucky looks up, taking in Clint’s ugly cut-off jean shorts, the freckles the sun has scattered on his shoulders, the beaming smile on his face; he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve this, good or bad. 

Clint goes direct the fridge, pulls a bottle of water out of the door and tips his head back to take a swing, the gentle sheen of sweat on his chest catching the light. A drip of condensation falls from the side of the bottle and catches on his neck, traces a slow slick path down his neck, and Bucky groans and shoves to his feet, ‘cos there’s only so much a man can fuckin’ take. Before Clint can move he’s got him by the hips, ducking to trace the line of moisture with his lips, and Clint - who, if he had any sense, would be shoving him away - breathes out and pulls him in like he’s been waiting, like he’s dyin’ for it too. 


	140. Chapter 140

“Clint -” 

He turned to face her, and the sympathy on her face was a little hard to take. They hadn’t even  _hurt_  him, not much, just kept him secret and safe and away from everyone until - yeah, okay, he went a little crazy with it, but - 

“Natasha,” he said, low and intent, “you are seriously my only hope, you gotta -” 

She took his hands, gentle where his nails were split and ragged from clawing at the walls. 

“You have to know how this sounds,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “You need some time to adjust, we can get you someone to talk to, it’s going to be -” 

“There isn’t  _time_.” She had to  _know_  how badly he wanted to just - to sleep, maybe on a couch out in the main room, somewhere he could hear the buzz of life around him. How badly he wanted to lay everything down for someone else to pick up for a while, but - 

“Steve would’ve noticed,” she said gently. “If there was something to notice, Steve would have seen.” 

“I love him.” He said it like an apology. “Natasha, I love him, and you  _know_  how I get.” 

Clint was terrible at love, or maybe far, far too good at it. He fell deep, and he fell hard, and he watched too closely, and he listened too much; people’d told him he was crazy for marrying Bobbi after a week, but he’d known her inside out by that point. Loved every inch of her. 

She looked - conflicted, and that was progress, right? That was  _something_. 

“Clint -” 

“I know, Tasha, I know how this sounds, but you have got to believe that I know him enough to know that is is  _not Bucky_  out there. _”_


	141. Chapter 141

“Hey.” 

The man approached the Soldier, his hands up and his palms out, and there was dissonance there - that gesture accompanied stasis, preceded retreat. He watched, his finger laid along the trigger guard but ready to move in a moment. 

The Soldier barked out a phrase, then tried it again, this time in English. 

“That’s close enough.” 

The man stopped obediently, feet braced square, his hands still above his head. It should have made him intimidating - he was far taller than average, his hands held higher than the Soldier’s head - but he was doing something that made him seem smaller. Harmless. It was the precise polar opposite of what the Soldier was instructed to do. 

“Just you and me here,” the man said, and that was a truth that the Soldier hadn’t noticed happening around him. His fingers loosened a fraction of an inch around the gun and then tightened again, near imperceptible as an indication of his surprise, but something told him the man had seen. “Just you and me, we’re good, we’re safe here, okay?” 

The Soldier expelled a breath at speed. It carried with it his disbelief. 

“I know it doesn’t feel like it,” the man said. He had a tangled mess of hair on his head, and he dressed like a bum, but he straightened himself out and stood like a military man. “I know there’s too many windows, right now, and it feels like there could be anyone behind them, but I got good eyes.” He smiled a little, and there was that momentary loosing of tension in the Soldier’s fingers again. “We’re safe here.” 

“I don’t believe it.” 

“I get that, I do.” His smile this time was sad. It was - the Soldier supposed there could be efficiency in communicating multiple emotions that way, but the potential for error was too great. “Maybe try believing me instead, Corporal?” 

“Sergeant,” the Soldier said, but couldn’t understand why. 


	142. Chapter 142

“I - thought you’d - be smaller,” the man chokes out, and it’s a reminder of Bucky’s strength; he loosens his hold even as he glares up at the guy, because he’s always been a little sensitive about his height, ever since Steve turned into a brick wall when he wasn’t looking. 

“Ain’t my fault we can’t all be giraffes,” he says, and - wary, ‘cos that’s been trained into him - steps away and lets his metal hand drop to his side. The guy sags back a little against the wall, his hand coming up to rub at his neck where Bucky can see red lines where the plates’ve caught. 

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” the guy says, and Bucky looks at him sharply, because that sure as hell ain’t the reaction he would expect from someone coming back to their place to find someone broken in and hoovering. Bucky shrugs, awkward. 

“Didn’t mean to steal all your shit,” he says, and this time the guy laughs - from his wince, it looks like it kinda hurts. 

“Bullshit,” he says, “but you keep the place like this and you’re welcome to it.” 

“You’re cuckoo.” 

“It’s been said.” The guy’s got a smile on him, goofier than it oughta be with all that muscle, the hard lines of his face when he’s got it stowed away. “Hell, you’re welcome to move in here if I get maid service for the price of leftover pizza and beer.” 

Bucky can feel himself flush a little, blotchy and awkward, and he tips his head forward a little so his hair’ll hide what sins it can. 

“There’s vegetables in the crisper,” he says, “and vitamins in the medicine cabinet.” Aw, geez, the smile’s gettin’ better by the second. “I used the credit card I found in the couch, I’m not some kinda saint.” 

“Nah, didn’t figure you for that.” The guy’s voice is warm and amused and far friendlier than anything Bucky’s heard in the last seventy years. He tips his head forward a little more. 

“C’mon,” he says - Clint Barton, if he’s going with the majority of the mail; the TV Guide apparently misread him into somethin’ obscene, which Bucky can see, the way the guy’s stretching. “Lemme order some pizza and we’ll talk terms of the tenancy.” 

“I’m makin’ a salad,” Bucky says, belligerent, and fuck if he couldn’t get used to that damned beautiful smile.


	143. Chapter 143

“I don’t deserve to be loved.” 

Bucky pushed up to lean on his elbow so he could stare down at Clint, incredulous. 

“Who the hell taught you -?” he started, but Clint hadn’t ever been a man of words and there was no way he was gonna let them persuade him now. His face was set against them, jaw tight, and these were the goddamn moments where he looked most like Steve, so Bucky had to kiss it outta him. 

He ghosted his fingers across the stubble that they’d earned in two days of waitin’ and watchin’, consigned to different rooftops ‘cos this was new enough that they couldn’t help but be distracted by each other; this was new enough that Clint figured Bucky didn’t know what he was talkin’ about when he talked about love. 

Clint tilted his head into the faint pressure of Bucky’s fingers, always so helplessly responsive, his eyes already falling into deeper shades of blue. He opened his mouth, lips dry and scratching against Bucky’s skin as they pressed to his fingers. Bucky felt Clint’s lips easing apart and he pulled his hand away, cupping the line of his jaw as he replaced fingers with lips against lips. 

He wasn’t sure he’d ever kissed anyone the way he kissed Clint. He couldn’t remember everything, but the feeling of being so utterly lost in something was unfamiliar and entirely new. He straddled Clint’s chest, holding his weight on his arms as he leaned over him, surrounded him, filled his entire world with the sight and the taste, the feel and the smell of him, ‘cos he was a jealous bastard and he couldn’t bear to have Clint think of anything else. 

“God,  _Buck_ ,” Clint groaned, and Bucky grinned against his mouth, fierce and decisive, implacable. 

“Clint,” he murmured back, pulling away just enough to see the dark of Clint’s eyes, touched their noses together just to see him grin. “I love you,” he said, certain of it in a way he didn’t understand and didn’t want to lose. “And fuck any asshole that tries to give us what we deserve.” 


	144. Chapter 144

“So, uh, I got two tickets to Coney Island today.” 

Bucky looked up at where Stevie stood, slight in the doorway, the light shining in around him and practically erasing him entirely. He was silhouetted against the morning, but Bucky didn’t have to see him all the way to know the little smirk he was wearin’, no matter how sheepish he pretended to be. Bucky sighed. 

“You’re gonna get me arrested,” he said, reaching for his hair pomade, and when Stevie sidled in he was full-on grinning, which was a rare enough sight these days that Bucky’d do just about anything to get it to stick around. 

“He was lookin’ at you too,” Steve said, reaching forward to smooth out Bucky’s hair; Bucky slapped his hands away, ‘cos Steve somehow always left him lookin’ like a shopkeeper on a Sunday, and that wasn’t the look he wanted. “He almost missed when he was throwing his knives ‘cos he was so busy lookin’, I thought his assistant’s look would just about kill.” 

“And how’s the drawing of Miss Natalia comin’, anyways?” 

Stevie flushed bright pink and cleared his throat, which made Bucky grin as he grabbed his jacket and hauled Stevie out by the shoulder, locking up behind them and leaving his key under the mat. He’d had to make it a habit ‘cos Stevie’d always been too goddamn independent to accept one of his own; Steve left a key outside his door under a half a brick, but that was more ‘cos he knew Bucky’d break a window if he wanted in. 

Bucky teased Steve gently all the way down to the ferry, laughing helplessly when he got all sputtery and defiant, his head just about red enough that Bucky was a little afraid he’d explode. It was an unfair fight, maybe; Steve couldn’t do more’n hint at Bucky’s own problem, not if they wanted to get through the day without gettin’ arrested for being unnatural. Even those sideways sly hints were like mama Rogers’ lotions on a bruise, though; they eased and loosened somethin’ Bucky hadn’t quite realised was all wound up tight. 

They tumbled off the ferry with Stevie’s head tucked up under Bucky’s arm, bright red and tryin’ to fend him off with his pointy goddamn elbows, and Bucky was too busy laughin’ at him to watch where he was walkin’, almost burying his face in the crotch of some guy walking around on stilts, juggling brightly coloured balls. The guy staggered, made a meal of it, and Bucky recognised his long limbs and the look of barely concealed panic, even under the exaggerated clown makeup he wore. It was the guy who’d taken his breath away a week ago, shooting straight and true and quick as a whip, and takin’ in the crowd’s applause with a sheepish kinda grin that’d spread and grown a little slyer when he’d caught Bucky’s eye. 

He dropped one of his juggling balls and Bucky ducked to pick it up, handing it up when the guy bent down to him, flushing bright red when the guy murmured that he had a break comin’ up, breath warm against Bucky’s ear. 


	145. Chapter 145

A grape Gatorade edged across the bathroom floor, slip-sliding into view. The floor was still a little wet from where Bucky’d insisted on mopping it before he’d let Clint lie flat out on it, his hot cheek resting against the cool tile like some kinda bliss. He was starting to feel a little shaky now, although whether that was the cold floor, the copious puking or some kinda combination of the two he couldn’t be sure. 

Bucky edged in next to the Gatorade, his bare feet at eye level until he carefully knelt down, lowered himself until his hair was touching the floor, his eyes wide and pale and very concerned. Clint squished his cheeks into a smile for him. 

“You don’t have to make  _me_  feel better,” Bucky said, and ruffled the sweat damp hair by Clint’s ear, sliding his fingers between the darkened strands and petting gently. Clint was a little worried he was gonna cry from it, ‘cos Natasha only took care of him when he was delirious enough it was deniable, and before that there’d only ever been Barney, and not so much of that. 

“‘s eyeball sweat,” he said, just to cover his bases, and Bucky thumbed away a bead of it. 

“Sure, what else could it be?” He sat up and Clint flopped onto his back, his shirt soaked through with sweat and clammy against his skin, but it was worth it to keep lookin’ at Bucky’s face. He liked the caring there, the expression that Bucky wasn’t even trying to hide. 

Clint smacked dry lips and made sad noises, ‘cos the grape Gatorade looked so goddamn good, but everything that’d hit his stomach in the past 18 hours had made a pretty swift reappearance, and he wasn’t sure if he could get himself upright enough even to risk it. 

“C’mon, champ,” Bucky said, careful about sliding his hand under Clint’s shoulders, helping him up slow enough for his belly to acclimatise to the altitude, taking pauses regularly, inching him in until Clint was sprawled back against him and breathing fast and hard through his mouth in the hopes the air’d somehow keep his stomach down. 

Bucky slid his metal hand under Clint’s shirt and rubbed gentle cooling circles against his skin and it helped, a little, made the heat against his back a little more bearable. 

“I love you, even if you’re a space heater,” Clint said; if anyone asked, he was gonna tell them he told Bucky loved him somewhere way more romantic than his bathroom floor, but Bucky didn’t seem to mind. 


	146. Chapter 146

“Why are you bleeding?” 

Bucky could honestly have started with a hell of a lot of other questions - like  _where are your shoes?_  or  _what happened to your eyebrows?_ or  _did you have a shirt when you left your apartment?_  - but the blood thing kinda seemed the most pressing. 

“I’m bleeding?” Clint looked down, almost comically surprised when he saw the blood soaking into the waistband of his grey sweatpants, the narrow gash across his side seeping gently. “I - uh. I haven’t slept in four days.” 

“I have - so many questions,” Bucky said, a little dazed, and then darted forward when Clint lurched, regaining his balance swiftly but, now Bucky looked closer, looking decidedly green. He slipped his arm around Clint’s waist and guided him into the apartment he shared with Steve, depositing him carefully on the couch before heading for the bathroom where Steve kept the butterfly strips and the antibacterial spray under the non-functioning sink. 

Clint had made himself a little more horizontal when Bucky returned, awkwardly perched on the edge of the couch so he didn’t get blood on the upholstery, one of his feet braced on the floor so he didn’t fall. Bucky sighed and stretched his arm out but couldn’t reach the inconvenient pile of laundry. He pulled off his shirt to put between Clint and the couch cushions; Clint made a strangled noise like he was trying to swallow his own tongue. 

“The hell did you do to yourself, Clint?” he asked. He was curious, too, how Clint had ended up on his doorstep; he and Clint had been engaged in a slow mailbox flirtation for about a month now, but Clint’s suggestive comment about Bucky’s package was as far as anything had gotten. 

“Tracksuit draculas,” Clint mumbled unhelpfully, and closed his eyes - to all appearances going to sleep, even as Bucky competently patched up his side. By the time Steve came home he was snoring, cuddling Bucky’s shirt up close to his face. 

“Holy shit,” Steve said, as soon as he got a look at who was on their couch. “Holy shit, Buck, I know you were pissed about the bathroom sink but did you  _stab_  our  _landlord?”_  


	147. Chapter 147

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the Mob Boss Bucky AU

James Buchanan Barnes flexes his hand around the gun, the black leather creaking softly in a room that would be silent if Connor’d done his damned job properly. Instead he’s got half-stifled panicked breathing whistling through this guy’s nose, he’s got a frantic whimpering mumble pulled outta shape by the half-assed gag. He’s halfway tempted to shoot him just to shut the asshole up. 

He’s had a long day. He’s had a long, hard, fuckin’ infuriating day, and it’s looking like he’s losing one of the Red Hook shipments to the goddamn Russians, which carries with it a strong possibility he’s gotta kill one of his guys. For the most part, Bucky  _likes_  his guys. It’s a problem.

The guy tied to the chair, he’s a problem too. He lets out something that’s halfway to a scream, and Bucky hasn’t even goddamned  _touched_ him yet. Bucky sets his jaw and lifts his hand, one finger’s black leather resting gentle against his lips. 

The resulting silence lets a little tension unwind from his shoulders; it lets him hear the gentle buzzing of his phone as well as feel it against his thigh.

If he didn’t have years of practice at self restraint he might’ve let his lips twitch up, just slightly. 

“I’m tryin’ to decide what to do to you,” he says, low and kinda soft, ‘cos you gotta know how to work a room. “I’m tryin’ to decide what your life is worth to me, what kind of a mood I’m in.” He shrugs a little, tips the gun back and forth. “Good mood? Maybe I give you another chance. Maybe I shrug off that payment, absorb it, trust that you are not going to be such a  _fuckin’ eejit_  again, huh?” 

The guy nods frantically, mumbling something high-pitched and fast that Bucky’d maybe care about if he cared about anything but what’s on his phone. 

“Bad mood?” he says. And he smiles, slow. The sharp odor of piss joins the bouquet of unsavoury fuckin’ scents that fill the basement. “Let’s see.” 

Bucky pulls his phone from his pants pocket; it’s slim and expensive and designed to work with his prosthetic, so he can unlock it even with the gloves. One message, a string of unfamiliar digits. 

 _Hey,_  it says.  _Hers my number._  

It’s a different smile, this one.

(He lets the guy live.)


	148. Chapter 148

Before whatever the hell happened between Clint and his assassin boyfriend, Barney woulda never got this close. Clint had always been the most frustrating possible mixture of tricky little bastard and overly trusting Labrador puppy - speaking of which, Barney was kinda wondering when he’d gotten around to getting a dog. 

Clint was - judging by the word on the street, ‘cos Barney was willing to get his ear a little dirty to check in on his little bro - still a part of the Avengers, still considered to be a threat to the livelihood of hardworking criminals the world over, but in Barney’s own personal experience that had only ever really lasted until the dumb punk learned your name. At that point, he’d bend over backwards to fix you, to do the right thing, up to the moment where he’d just about die trying. 

Clint was an idiot. But in some weird, fundamental, bred into the bones sorta deal he was  _Barney’s_  idiot. Raised to it, in the darkest, most fucked up kinda way. 

Thanks, dad. 

So Barney was trailing Clint to the bodega a block away from the battered old brownstone that he’d bought with  _Barney’s money_ , which was frankly the kind of insulting that had made Barney kinda wonder if that’d been the point. He coulda at least got something  _fancy._  Clint was greeting people he met on the street, failing miserably at checkin’ his periphery, bouncing a little with every step. 

That was the weirdest thing, maybe. That was what had Barney on edge. 

Clint had always been  _familiar_ , see, every time the tangling paths of their lives edged back into sync. He’d always been a little sheepish, a little defiant, a little angry, a little hunched. He’d always been Barney’s little brother, deep at the core of him, but Barney wasn’t sure how much of this grinning, gregarious stranger he knew. 

Clint looked happy. Barney was trying like hell not to resent him for it. 

A hand closed around Barney’s sleeve and before he could even react he was hauled into a narrow alleyway, pushed back against rough brick and looking down into the furious face of his brother’s murderous fiance. 

“If you’re here to fuck with him -” he growled, and Barney shrugged as much as the guy’s grip would allow. 

“Thought that was your job now.” 

“Damned right,” the man said, and let go of him, stepping back even though Barney knew the guy’d still be able to kill him with insulting ease. “You didn’t RSVP.” 

Barney thought about it for a second; thought about the unfamiliar smile on his little brother’s face. 

“Consider this me responding,” he said, working to look a little less like he wanted to punch the guy in the head, or at least die tryin’. “Plus one. Merci.” 


	149. Chapter 149

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the Daemon AU

Steve looked up when Bucky walked through the workshop door, and Bucky bristled a little at the way the smile just dropped off the guy’s face. For all his big talk about bein’ with him until the end of the line, Steve had been pretty absent since Bucky’s return, had been clearly uncomfortable with the weapon he’d been given in place of an arm, had looked at it like he could still see the blood that stained it. 

Bucky knew that Steve would go to the mat for him, one hundred percent. If there was a fight to be had Bucky knew which side Steve would be on, he just wasn’t so sure that Steve knew how to be a person with him, any more. 

“Oh, hey, Terminator,” Tony said, and jerked his head, beckoning him inside. “Thanks for making time in your busy schedule only, oh, three hours after I asked you down.”

“Tony -” Steve said, right over the top of Bucky’s response. 

“I was asleep.” He’d been finding it kinda harder, lately. The nightmares had always plagued him in his room, but Lucky had always helped out in the day time, and he’d woken from napping on the couch more times than he could say. 

“Well recovery time is important,” Tony said, and he quirked a tiny smile. “Docs cleared you?” 

“Docs cleared him,” Steve said, and there was a moment of warmth that he’d at least been paying attention, even if it was from afar. 

“Okay,” Tony said, and clapped his hands together happily. “So let’s see how this thing functions after someone drops a building on it!” 

Bucky reached for the hem of his shirt, and watched, resigned, as Steve spun on his heel and left the workshop, the glass door closing behind him. 

“It’s not easy for him,” Tony said, taking a delicate screwdriver from the red panda that was always close to his side. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “and it’s been a real picnic for me.” 

“At least he left Teddy here,” Tony said. “That’s gotta mean something.” 

Bucky followed his line of sight to where Tony’s red panda had curled itself around a mongoose, slender and fierce and about ten times more personality than you’d think from its size. 

“Teddy -” he said, soft, and the mongoose cocked its head; it’d been Roosevelt for most of the time he’d known it, of course; Steve had only started calling it Teddy in disgust after the election of Franklin D. 

Bucky could feel the colour draining out of his face, swayed a little like he always did when memories fell on him from a great height. Tony shoved him down onto a stool, kept ahold of his shoulder until he’d managed something like steady. 

“You okay, Frosty?” he said, and Bucky looked up at him, surprised to see concern in the guy’s dark eyes. 

“I just remembered Teddy,” he said. “I just - who the hell is Lucky?”


	150. Chapter 150

Clint bristled, straightened up to his full height - and seriously, the growth spurt his dad’s height had always promised could happen, any day now - and glared. His eye was stinging, blood from the cut in his eyebrow trickling down, and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. 

“You’re just jealous,” he said, trying for a cocky smirk, trying to channel his brother the way he practised in the mirror. 

“Oh, honey.” The guy - football captain, homecoming king, bred to the bully, and Clint couldn’t even remember his  _name_  which was half the problem, here - reached out to gently pat Clint’s cheek. “Idiot circus trash with the most useless talent this side of the fuckin’ kazoo? I’d never be jealous of you.” 

It wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t be so bad if Clint could keep his breath from hitching, only. It’s not the fuckin’  _beating_ , okay, those he can take. Hell, he’s taken ten times worse before breakfast, and this is fuckin’ nothing. It’s the moment of tenderness that has his insides all tangled up, ‘cos it’s been years and change since anyone bothered touching Clint careful. 

“Fuck you,” he says, and his voice breaks a little, and he hates the smile that’s curling on the guy’s face - 

And then there’s warmth across his shoulders, and someone’s tucking him against their side, long hair brushing his cheek. 

“Should I be jealous?” It’s playful, it’s a little Brooklyn, it’s carrying concealed knives. The homecoming captain, football king, straightens up all sudden like someone’s rammed a steel rod up his - spine. 

“We were just chatting,” he said, and reached out to straighten Clint’s collar, but flinched back before he could. He turned and sauntered off, a little too fast to carry off the casual he was aiming for, and Clint couldn’t help the little snort of laughter that followed him. He’s probably gonna pay for that later, but right now - right now he’s warm, and he’s making up for years of careful touching, and he’s maybe a little in love. 


End file.
